Come Dance in the Fire
by Twisted Skys
Summary: The vanguard assign her a partner. Mostly because he might be a traitor. She just thinks he's a dumb warlock with a few issues. She doesn't plan to aim too high, so she's just going to work on not hitting him.
1. How They Met

_1\. Also Known as the Time Nicole Wished Physical Violence on a Warlock_

It was the yelling that caught Nicole's attention. She left the inventory interface, letting the image fade so she could look out at her surroundings again. Her ghost spun at her shoulder, turning to look at the commotion occurring in front of the bounty tracker. She wasn't the only one interested; every guardian in the vicinity came over to see.

She had missed whatever had started the scuffle between the two guardians that now grappled with each other on the stone tiles. The warlock was being the loud one, and was clearly losing to his titan opponent. A slew of profanities and insults spewed from him, but that was the only offense he seemed able to offer. The titan exo was effectively using brute strength and his own weight to keep the smaller guardian pinned beneath him. He struck his helmet twice, sharp cracking sounds echoing with each hit. The first hit made the warlock pause his yelling, the second had him shutting up completely. By the third he had stopped kicking out and struggling to get away. The titan seemed too caught up in his fit of rage to see that his opponent wasn't fighting anymore.

Nicole glanced around her. Some guardians watched with wide-eyed expectation of something, other were shaking their heads in confusion and disgust. No one seemed willing to step in and help the warlock out, or at least try to stop the titan from killing him.

"Don't even think about it," her ghost piped up inside her head, making a soft sort of buzzing. "It's best we don't get involved."

 _The titan will kill that warlock_ , she replied in her own mindspeak.

"And his ghost will bring him back. Nicole."

The huntress was ignoring the ghost by now. She moved across the pavilion, breaking out into a quick jog, grabbing the titan by the back of his armor and using all of her weight to heave backwards. It wasn't enough to get the big lug off of the smaller guardian, but it got his attention. The titan's head whipped around, the front of his helmet a blank slate hiding the glare she knew was underneath.

The momentary distraction was enough for the warlock to get his head back from the daze the titan had knocked him into. Nicole moved back in time to avoid the fire thrown towards the titan. It wasn't quite a grenade, but certainly more than your average scorch melee. It caught the titan unawares, the blistering of his armor confirmation that the warlock's strike had hit home.

The titan backed off for a moment, desperately patting down his arm where the warlock had hit him. The sunsinger, finally free of the titan's weight was scrambling unsteadily to his feet. He managed to gain his footing but was leaning toward the railing beside him like he might still fall over.

The titan growled once he had managed to put out the sizzling on his armor. His arms fell to his side and he took several steps toward the warlock, who backpedalled in response. The titan's arms crackled with arc energy, ready to hit back with the same light that made his armor smoke.

The warlock looked ready to turn tail and run if he wasn't so unsteady on his feet. Nicole moved, much faster than the titan, and before the warlock could run. In the next instance she was between them, facing the titan head on, her own arc energy crackling around her feet. She spread her arms wide, ready to bodily stop the titan if she had to.

She could feel her ghost's exasperation, but she ignored him, meeting the titan's blank helmeted stare with her own glare. While her efforts had been noble, and while she was entirely prepared to actually fight off the titan, she still felt a mixture of relief and guilt when the commanding yell of the crucible handler cut the tension like knife.

"What the _Hell_ is going on up here?"

Someone must have gone down to tell Shaxx, because not only did he come up to break up the fight, but a gaggle of civilians and a few more curious guardians had come up to join the crowd of spectators. Shaxx went straight for the warlock, grabbing the front of his armor and shaking him near violently. "Rest, why are you aggravating people again!" It always kind of amazed Nicole how Shaxx managed to project his voice despite the fact that he never took off his helmet.

The warlock must have been still pretty dazed because he offered no explanation past raising his arms in a surrender pose, showing off the palms of his hands and bunching his shoulders like a shrug.

Shaxx's attention turned toward the two involved guardians. Nicole, who was still somewhere between guilt and relief, tensed when the crucible handler's head swivelled toward her. She pointed to the titan out of pure instinct.

"Tarios-7." Shaxx let the warlock go to focus on the shrinking titan. Rest sort of just slumped to the ground without Shaxx holding him up anymore, managing to look relieved despite still having his helmet on.

Shaxx was too busy tearing into the titan to notice the hunter approach the warlock. She touched his shoulder, making him look up at her. He seemed awfully confused but it was hard for her to tell. She put her hands on both sides of his helmet in a steadying motion, but also as a request for him to remove the helmet.

He did so after a minute, the sounds of Shaxx's reprimand still occurring in the background. She looked over her shoulder briefly to see the titan looked as small as he possibly could, looking at the ground as if he wished the stone tiles would swallow him. She looked back at the warlock in time to catch him shaking his head free of the helmet. He blinked a few times then brought his gaze to her. He still looked very confused, and quite a bit troubled.

Her ghost appeared at her shoulder, always her voice when she needed him. "Are you alright, warlock?"

He nodded and winced, a hand coming to cup his forehead. His own ghost finally appeared at his side now that the danger seemed to have passed. It silently scanned the warlock, funnelling light into whatever injury he may have sustained.

"He'll be alright. No lasting damages." Nicole's ghost intoned softly.

The warlock's ghost finished and turned to them. "Yes, he'll be fine," it replied tersely, it's voice neither strikingly male nor female. "Thank you for breaking up that fight." It turned its eye to Nicole, bobbing a short nod of gratitude before turning back to the warlock. "We should go now, Aydin," it said rather pointedly, more a command than an actual suggestion. It seemed like a normal thing for them. Rest nodded, still for the life of him looking a bit dazed. He stood just fine however, so Nicole made no move to stop him.

He made it no further than a few feet before the vanguard chose that moment to finally emerge from the Hall of Guardians. Or at least Zavala did, looking for all the world like he'd been the one to draw the short straw and see what all the commotion was about. Shaxx noticed only after Nicole stood straighter and saluted her leader. Rest also stopped, but made no actual acknowledgment of Zavala.

The titan vanguard made a beeline for Shaxx, who paused his lecture only to stare silently at Zavala.

"What is going on up here?"

"Fighting in the Tower." Shaxx supplied.

With Zavala around, guardians and civilians didn't exactly want to be caught loitering and the crowd started to disperse around them. The usual Tower chatter came back, for a moment surprising Nicole with the fact that she hadn't even noticed it had been gone.

Zavala spied the titan half cowering behind Shaxx before looking over his shoulder where Nicole and Rest were standing. Nicole nodded to her leader. Rest did not seem to react at all. Zavala's eyes narrowed in on the warlock and a tired knowing look washed over his pale features.

Rest opened his mouth to explain but Zavala cut him off before he could even get a breath in. "No, I don't want to know why you have another guardian hell bent on killing you this time. The three of you, down to the Hall. Now. Thank you for your _intervention_ , Lord Shaxx."

 _Wait, wait! I'm not involved!_ Nicole shook her head, waving her hands frantically at the titan vanguard, but he had already turned away to shoo the crucible handler off. She heard the warlock laugh behind her, a short derisive noise that sounded in no way amused or remotely friendly. He even had the gall to slap her shoulder.

"Looks like you're in trouble now, sweet cheeks."

She moved away from his hand, glaring after him as he passed her to follow the titan vanguard down into the hall. She trailed after a moment. Zavala was practically dragging the titan. Rest went without complaint. Nicole wasn't going to dare disobey, so she followed too. Shaxx brought up the rear of their dower procession but split off once they were down the stairs to offer help to a hunter waiting for him at his table.

Upon entering the hall, both Cayde and Ikora looked up from the guardians they were helping and excused themselves to be able to also follow Zavala into a more private side room. The three guardians were commanded to sit while the three vanguard found perches around the room that managed to make them look even more commanding. Especially with their scowls and crossed arms. Nicole wanted to sink into the floor.

"Explain." Zavala barked.

The warlock opened his mouth to do just that but once again Zavala cut him off before he could get a word in edgewise.

"Not you, Rest. I don't trust your explanations." Zavala pointed to the titan even as the warlock made a rather loud noise of indignation, managing to look quite offended.

It only served to make Nicole curious. From what she could gather, this was not this warlock's first time pissing a fellow guardian off. She wondered what she had gotten herself into.

The titan in question, that was now the center of everyone's attention, made a rude noise back to the warlock, a smug little smirk on his face plates. "I caught him conspiring with a Fallen, commander."

There was a three second window of silence that felt like a bomb had been dropped and the only one to not realize was the titan who'd said it. Zavala and Cayde swivelled their heads around to a very shocked looking warlock and Ikora's eyes bugged out a little and she made a short coughing noise in her throat that she covered with her hand. Even Nicole looked over at the warlock, her heart skipping a beat.

That was quite an accusation to make. And seeing as how the warlock was being forbidden to speak in his own defense, could mean seriously dire consequences for him. But he looked so shocked by the accusation that Nicole hoped this was just a really big misunderstanding.

"And what exactly makes you believe that, titan," Ikora asked, being the first to recover.

Rest looked up at Ikora pleadingly, then brought his gaze around to the other vanguard leaders. Everyone seemed to be pointedly ignoring him except Nicole. This had to be misunderstanding. A Guardian of Light, conspiring with a force of the Darkness? Impossible, preposterous! The warlock looked so taken aback that it couldn't be true.

The gravity of his accusation seemed to suddenly hit the titan like a ton of bricks. His shoulders slumped a little and he looked over at the warlock, the smugness gone. But if he felt any remorse toward what he was about to condemn his fellow guardian too, he didn't act on it. "We were patrolling a portion of the North American deadzone-" There was a collective sigh among the vanguard that only the warlock seemed to understand the reason behind. He winced and shrunk into the chair a little. The titan only paused for a second to observe the goings on around him before plowing on. "We split off at some point. Aydin disappeared down some tunnels. I finished a scout objective and when he hadn't returned, I went looking for him. The whole place seemed really creepy and my ghost was having a hard time getting a bead on his location. But I finally tracked him down. And he was talking to a Fallen. I tried to shoot it but he stepped in front of my shot. Took it straight to the helmet. Next thing I know there's about five million dregs and this asshole is just gone." His anger resurfaced suddenly, the titan stood and made a grab for the warlock. "He defended a Fallen and then left me there to die!"

Rest leapt from his chair, ducking beneath the titans grasping hands even as Zavala physically lifted the smaller titan and slammed him back down in his chair. "Sit. Down."

"I didn't leave you to die," Rest yelled back as he moved away. "You're a big boy, and I'm no good at close quarters fighting. I knew you could handle it. And you did. You're just fine, you big lug."

"I knew something was up with this little bastard. Always trying to give me the slip. I was assigned to you and you did nothing but make my life harder. And now I know your secret, you tried to kill me!"

Rest was quiet for a beat, sucking in a sharp breath and redoubling his glare into something downright hateful.

"What? You mean you weren't hanging out for my charming personality and excellent conversation skills? For shame Honey Bear," he snarled back from his new corner of the room. Cayde was attempting to shoo him back to his chair but the warlock was doing an excellent job of ignoring the hunter. "Y'know, and here I was thinking you actually wanted to be my friend." He looked like a caged animal striking back at his captors. He was terrified, hurt, and grasping for straws.

"No one would want to be friends with a traitorous, annoying little shit like you." The titan was standing again but Zavala's iron grip on his shoulder was enough to make his armor creak.

If the comment had hurt, Rest made no sign. Instead, he turned his attention to the three vanguards. "So you trick me into thinking I had a friend only so you could spy on me? Really?" He clapped his hands together a few times in the most condescending applause Nicole thought possible. "So can I defend myself now or is this still blind accusation time? Because if it is, then I accuse this jerk of farting in the tower elevator when he picks me up in the morning. It's disgusting, okay."

Nicole wasn't sure what the warlock was aiming for with a random comment like that but his whole demeanor changed. Like a solution was handed to him on a gold dish; all of a sudden, it was the warlock in charge and the only ones who seemed at all aware were himself and Nicole.

There was another three-beat pause before Cayde finally responded, a half chuckled and whispered, "What?"

"I'm serious. The elevator stinks like ass every morning. If it ain't him," he threw a gesture at the titan, who had begun to sink back into his seat flabbergasted, "Then we have a morning fart bandit and he needs to be caught."

The whole room was caught off balance now. The warlock was running the show. "Furthermore, I would also like to accuse him of overreacting."

Ah, so that had been his intention. Throw off the room, gain control of everyone. Deliver his side of the story while everyone was still reeling. Nicole wanted to clap for him. He was a clever little warlock.

"Rest," Ikora started.

He actually had the balls to cut her off. Sauntering back to his chair, he sat down looking much more relaxed than he should have been given the circumstances. "Don't I get to explain? He got to say his piece. It's my turn." He said it with so much force that Ikora finally waved for him to continue.

The rest of the vanguard seemed to settle in a little better now that the focus was back on topic. Even Tarios was calm now. He even seemed a bit taken aback.

Rest was quiet for a few moments, letting everyone settle. By the time he started talking, he was completely serious again. All talk of a fart bandit was gone; his confidence had dwindled away again until he seemed like gravity was weighing on him harder than it should.

"She had a kid with her." His voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper. The room collectively leant in. The warlock bowed his head so that his forehead rested against his thumbs for a moment, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Just a little tiny thing. Its mask must have been busted or something. I could hear it wheezing. Little coughs, like crying. When I found them, the bigger one was trying to siphon her air supply to the little one. They both couldn't breathe." He fell quiet for a moment, letting the room digest the story he was giving them.

"Then why did you step in front of my bullet?" The titan asked. He was much calmer now, his question neither patronizing nor accusing. Just curious. In fact, the whole room seemed much calmer. The flurry from before seemed so much more heated now than it had when it was happening.

"I couldn't kill them." Rest looked up to the titan. "I just… I couldn't." He sighed his admittance.

Nicole's heart hurt a little. Sure, it was a Fallen, an enemy. Pirates that scavenged their lands, sharks picking at the bones of the long dead. Their job was to protect the innocent people of the City, and of the wilds. Occasionally, that principle was thrown into question when you saw the same innocence in the creatures you had to kill. The same monsters in the people you were tasked to protect. She'd seen the human monsters before, had to work for them a few times. She knew that nothing was black and white so when the warlock admitted to his own confusion, she felt for him. He must have been young. Nicole had dealt with that idealistic crap a long time ago. Nothing was black and white. No one lived forever. Nothing was ever so simple.

Her ghost shook her from her thoughts with a small blip, catching her mind wandering to bad things and putting a stop to it. She silently thanked him and tuned back into the conversation as the warlock started talking again.

"I wasn't about to let some kid die. Even if it was an alien."

"Rest, I understand your confusion," Ikora interjected. "But a Fallen is still an enemy."

"They weren't even armed!" He suddenly stood, his voice getting much louder. "Did you actually expect me to let that kid die? You weren't there! You didn't hear the sounds it was making!" His head dropped to his hands again and he let out a frustrated almost sob. "You didn't hear it suffocating..." he whispered quietly, his voice breaking.

Nicole looked over to the titan, who seemed very much troubled by all of this. He must have been pretty young too, Nicole decided.

Zavala seemed to have had enough of this whole display. He sighed heavily. "Rest, I would be more inclined to let you off the hook on this one but considering past allegations against you, I'm not so sure that's wise."

The warlock looked up, the sorrow and confusion that had been written all over his face only a few seconds before was nearly completely gone. "What? Past allegations? Because I don't always sleep in the Tower? Whoop-di-doo. Maybe I should have been a hunter." He made a wild gesture to Cayde. "You don't get all uppity when a hunter decides to disappear for a bit."

"Yeah, but none of my hunters consistently disappear like you do. And furthermore, you aren't a hunter," the exo replied back without missing a beat.

The warlock's complete emotional turn around had made Nicole pause. It seemed weird, having witnessed it so closely. It made his story earlier seem brittle and stale. She frowned and couldn't quite keep the suspicion off of her face.

"Speaking of hunters," Cayde continued after a moment. "We have a delinquent warlock," Rest snorted rather loudly in protest to that. "An overreacting titan," this time it was Tarios's turn to make a noise of indignation. "And a hunter that seems to have popped up out of nowhere. So what's your story, kid?"

Suddenly on the spot, Nicole felt her whole face heat up. Everyone was staring at her. The exo titan with his intense red optics, the human warlock with his angry gaze, and the commanding stances of the vanguard all around her. She swallowed roughly and wondered if she'd have to break her vow this time. She always wondered when it would happen. If this would be the time when she had no choice but to speak up or if the stone in her throat would stay lodged, her voice locked away behind it.

Her ghost came to her rescue, feeling her mounting panic and materializing beside her shoulder. "We're not really involved," he started. "We just saw them fighting in the pavilion and tried to break it up."

The titan shuffled his feet for a moment, looking a little ashamed. "At first I thought you were one of Aydin's friends come to defend him. Sorry for almost punching you," he laughed a little. Nicole nodded in acknowledgment of his apology. The titan didn't seem so bad now, really. Just a bout of misplaced anger.

The warlock made a bitter noise from his position on the other side of the room. "I have no friends, remember?" He spat out. "All I got are people who spy on me."

"For good goddamn reason, you prick." The titan snapped back.

"Enough, both of you!" Zavala cut in, silencing their argument before it got out of hand. "Rest, your take on the hunter?"

He shrugged. "What about her, another nosey pup with a knife. As far I know she was actually just trying to help." He didn't look at her, didn't even acknowledge that she was in the same room, sharing the same space as him. Anger in every line of his frame but Nicole was too busy deciding whether or not she found him offensive.

On the one hand, he did confirm that she was only trying to help. On the other, she was very obviously much older than him, if not physically then most certainly mentally. He had no idea of how hardship or loss changed world views. He was confused about his place in this world and if he had even half her life experience, then there wouldn't even be a whisper of doubt in his mind. You killed the enemy before they got to someone you loved and the fact that he called her a pup, let alone the jab at her general identity as a hunter (just like a warlock to act superior) raised her ire.

While his naivety could be almost considered cute in the same way a puppy was cute when it tripped over its own paws, she decided that the titan was quite correct in calling him a prick. A manipulative prick at that. He would figure it out soon enough, or he could be killed in the process. But those were the trials young guardians faced and there was nothing she could for him.

"Well, that's nicely convenient." Cayde said after a short contemplative pause, clapping his hands together. "Ikora, Zavala? Don't you think she's perfect? No fireteam, known specifically for her excellent reconnaissance reports. Outstanding record and a spotless incident report. And they've already met. We couldn't ask for more, really."

Nicole looked around the room at the other vanguard, confusion furrowing her brow. What was all this about? What were they getting at?

Ikora and Zavala looked at each other too, but with significantly less confusion. They seemed to contemplate Cayde's words for a moment before silently deciding something amongst themselves. There were a few more shared looks and nods, to which Nicole was starting to feel the churn of nervousness in her gut. She'd never really been in real trouble before and while she didn't really believe she was in trouble now, the guilt in her was unmistakable. She risked a glance to the warlock, who was looking equally as troubled but Nicole figured he had every right considering he was the one actually in trouble.

"Tarios, you're dismissed." Zavala spoke at last. The titan in the chair seemed to nearly deflate, slouching down. "But don't think you're off the hook. You still failed your mission and you started a fight in the Tower pavilion. You will be reprimanded, but at this time we have more important things to deal with." He looked pointedly to the warlock as he said this. "Report back tomorrow morning, and you will be confined to the Tower for tonight."

Tarios-7 stood stiffly and saluted his leader before leaving the room.

"As for you two," Ikora started once the door was closed again. "We have something a little different in mind." She addressed the warlock directly. "As you know now, although I suspected you've known for a while, we assigned Tarios to you to try and find out where it is that you disappear to, and the information we gained from that endeavor was… enlightening in ways we were not expecting."

Rest baulked at her for a second before finding his voice. "You don't actually believe I'm a traitor, do you? I couldn't kill a bloody kid, and I'm sorry. It won't happen again; I swear to the Traveller. I'm not a traitor!"

"Calm down, kid," Cayde put his hands up in a placating manner, chasing the warlock back into sitting by stepping forward. "We're not sure what to believe right now, so we're going to set up some measures to try to keep you in line. Behave and we'll let you off the hook. It's simple."

"We're assigning Nicole Foxwell to your fireteam and we're putting you on probation." Ikora cut in once Cayde had successfully made the warlock sit. "Which means that you are not allowed to leave the Tower unless accompanied by your fireteam."

"Who's Foxwell? I swear, I'll behave unless it's another goddamn titan."

Zavala was too regal to roll his eyes but he sighed heavily and let the jab glance off of him. Nicole was trying very hard not to be annoyed by the warlock; she had to squash the urge to glare at him. _Who's Foxwell? I am, you dweeb. The one who saved your ass from the titan you pissed off._

Cayde pointedly ignored Rest's question to address her. "Sorry, Foxwell. I hate to throw you under the bus on this but we need someone we can trust to get the job done. You've trained young guardians before. It'll be just like that, except with less training. And probably more yelling."

Rest looked over at her for a few seconds, his eyes assessing her. He then turned his attention back to Ikora. "Do I really need a babysitter?"

"What happened to 'I'll behave if it isn't another titan'?" Cayde interjected, smirking.

"I meant a warlock. I'd have been cool with a warlock, y'know. Someone who understands the pursuit of knowledge. How else am I supposed to get any research done? It was bad enough with a titan, but a hunter? Give me a break. That's like herding a cat."

"I'm sure you'll make do, Rest." Ikora chastised him.

"What's the point of this? I gave the titan a slip. So I'll have to try a little harder with a hunter, big whoop. How is this going to change anything?"

"Because now if you give Foxwell the slip, you'll be the one in trouble," Cayde replied. "You see, now we are all in the knowledge that you like to bug out, we've collectively given up trying to figure out why or where. But maybe we can try to stop it. Preferably before you get yourself killed. And with these allegations against you, I don't know if I feel safe letting you just disappear anyway. This is our way of giving you incentive to stop, warlock. You get it now?"

Rest frowned deeply but seemed to let that point go for another. "And what about my order? We're not exactly friendly to outsiders. Not to mention that I barely get to keep my clearance to the Reef. I'm not allowed to bring anyone else."

"I'm sure you can figure it out, Rest." Ikora replied, showing him no mercy. "You managed to get yourself in, I'm sure you can convince them to let in another."

"But I don't have time to negotiate with the guard. I have a report due soon."

"Then you shouldn't have gotten yourself in trouble."

Rest opened his mouth to argue more but all that came out was an angry little noise. Nicole watched his face contort into several different emotions before he closed his mouth and sat back down. It reminded her of her own internal arguments with her ghost and she smiled a little, knowing that that was probably just what happened. His ghost telling him to shut up before he dug himself deeper.

"You two are dismissed," Zavala said once Rest had finally calmed down. "Report to the fireteam board for your assignment tomorrow. Rest, you know the drill. You are on probation. That means you are not allowed to leave the Tower unless accompanied by your fireteam. That means the City too."

A fresh wave of anger crossed the warlock's face but he was tightly silent. He stood stiffly and left the room without even an acknowledgement. Nicole stood as well, saluted her leaders and left the room. Rest had stormed off by now. He wasn't even in the pavilion when she climbed the stairs.

Not that it really mattered to her. She was in charge of keeping an eye on him only outside the Tower. She took a little offense to that fact that she was effectively his ball and chain so they couldn't just keep him locked up in the Tower indefinitely, but in the end, she decided that Cayde was right. It would be just like training a young guardian. She was there to watch and make sure they didn't get themselves killed on the first day. She was not required to be there long. A week at most. Don't get attached, don't get personal. Do the job and go home.

She sighed and went back to her apartment. She planned to go out and patrol Venus but now she was just too tired. Besides, she had a long day tomorrow, and she had to mentally prepare herself for the no doubt shit storm an angry warlock could cause.

* * *

 _Afterword: So uh, this is a thing. That I've actually been working on for a little over a year now. Well, me and a friend, actually. Started as a roleplay but then Aydin became my baby and I love him very much and want to tell his story properly. Nicole belongs to friend. She's letting me use her. And yes, this is a long ass story that is more than just a crap ton of little oneshots. I'm actually writing a cohesive story for once._

 _Something that I would like to make clear as we go forward that I'm not sure gets directly mentioned, but is important nonetheless. All guardians have one subclass that they cannot switch from. It takes them months and years to master their respective forms of light. By which I mean a hunter is not bladedancer and gunslinger. They are either/or unless particularly powerful or very old. That's the only time they can switch on command. By that logic the guardian that is Guardian you play in the game is like whoa powerful. A sunsinger can, for instance, channel arc energy, but they cannot generate it._

 _There's a few other things that I'll probably end up explaining plainly in post chapter notes but for the sake of spoilers, I'll leave it alone for now._

 _One last thing; we started writing this before House of Wolves came out, so that is when the story starts in the timeline. Which you might have caught but will become clearer later, but for now, just remember that that is also a thing._

 _Edit: Quality Control edits thanks to Cheesesack._


	2. How They Fought

_2\. Or That Time Nicole Actually Slaps Aydin_

Nicole woke up in a red cloak kind of mood. She had several to choose from of course, but the one she went with was the most vibrant one she could find. Why? Because all her previous experiences with working with warlocks that were not newborn (because for some reason, when they were first born their predestined warlock stupidity had not yet set in), it always turned into a pissing contest over who looked better in their gear.

So she went with bright vibrant reds and deep solid blacks for her armor shader today, using perhaps not her best quality gear, but stuff she knew would look good. She couldn't imagine the vanguard would send them on a task that was too difficult.

She hadn't gotten any word from the warlock by the time she left her quarters in the midmorning. Her ghost sent a transmission and for a while didn't get anything back so she assumed he was still asleep or something. Lazy warlock.

She got her assignment off the board. A little note on a square piece of paper with coordinates and a database serial number for the ghost to look up their target. Depending on where on the local galactic map it was posted, would tell you which planet. Red or green colored pieces were for specific groups, having their name printed on the outside. Blue notes were for full teams of three and yellow for six but were generally for anyone to tackle. White notes were open bounties. Mostly hunters took those notes, as they were reconnaissance or exploration missions. Warlocks rarely had the attention span and titans just weren't interested if there wasn't anything to punch.

Nicole found their assignment and looked over the white notes, finding a patrol request on Venus. She would decide later if she wanted to drag the warlock with her or not. She wasn't the one on probation, and in all honesty, if he was a jerk, then she wouldn't feel at all bad leaving him stranded while she went out for a day or two.

By that point, her ghost had gotten a response from the warlock. "He's in the hanger using the communication switchboard," her ghost told her from inside her head.

She tilted her head a little. _Guess he wasn't asleep. Did he say he who he was trying to contact?_

"No, but his ghost seems awfully terse. I'm not sure I like them too much."

 _Wouldn't you be pretty mad if I was being accused of treason?_

"I suppose so. Still very rude."

 _We'll go find them. Who's our target, anyway?_

"Oh right," her ghost blipped out for a second, probably concentrating on finding the intel they needed. She started toward the Tower hanger. He came back a second later. "Okay, looks like we have just a big cabal. One of the contenders for a Valus another guardian took out a few months ago. Created quite a power vacuum and this guy managed to score himself a tank and has been creeping in on our safe zones on Mars. Trying really hard to prove himself to the cabal higher ups. Vanguard wants him shut down, one to make him stop bugging our safe zones, but they also want us make a show out of it. Big explosions. Leave us alone, in other words. Bug us and we blow your crap to pieces and shit on your face, as Cayde put it."

Nicole snorted. While she wasn't one for big showy kills, she supposed it would be easier than trying to get a warlock to be stealthy.

The communication switchboard was nestled down below the hangar itself, behind a usually locked door. Nicole knew that guardians were allowed access to it, but they rarely had a need to use it. Usually it was employed by the factions. She found him leaning over the board, typing rapidly away at the holokeys, his ghost floating at his shoulder. It noticed her approach first, making a sharp noise to get the warlock's attention.

He looked over his shoulder at her and gave a short nod of acknowledgement before going back to typing. She paused in the door for a second. He was curt but the general foulness of the last time she'd seen him was gone.

 _At least he's in a better mood now._

Her ghost buzzed softly in agreement. His ghost however would not stop watching her. Its optic followed her sharply as she came closer, never once looking away. It assessed her acutely and she felt almost naked beneath it's pale blue gaze. She approached more warily after a short pause, getting closer only because she couldn't see the screen.

She raised on her tiptoes so she could see around his shoulders without having to get too close. _What's he typing?_

Her ghost was quiet for a minute. "It's all gobbledygook," he commented from inside her head. "It looks like a code of some kind. Wait, what language is that? That can't just be a single dialect…?"

 _Ask him._

Her ghost appeared at her shoulder a second later. "Are you working on an encryption?"

The warlock paused for a second to look over his shoulder at her. He then took his gaze to his ghost before looking back at the screen and continuing without answering.

"Yes, what's it to you," his ghost replied for him, sounding irritated.

She glared at the little orb. Her ghost was right. What a rude little ghost.

"You don't have to be rude," her ghost spoke for her, reading her emotions as easily as she breathed. "We were just curious."

"I'm not being rude, I just think you shouldn't just barge in here and start asking questions. I told you where we were because we're almost done but you're just going to have to wait a few more minutes."

Nicole heard the warlock snort but he made no effort to join the conversation. She kind of wanted to slap him. Sure he wasn't being as foul as he had been last night, but by the Traveler she hoped this uppity warlock-better-than-you attitude didn't persist because otherwise he was going to end up fried crispy in a ditch somewhere. She took a breath. _Kind of suspicious isn't it, that he's sending encrypted messages off world._

Her ghost got the hint, buzzing his own irritation for a second. "Aren't you trying to avoid suspicious behavior? What's the vanguard going to say when we report back that you're sending encrypted messages off to who knows where."

That made the warlock stop finally and turn to look at her. The ghost raised a little higher in the air so it was in his direct line of sight. "Aydin, don't-"

"Will you finish this for me, Verz?" It sounded like a threat, and the way he was looking at her like a hungry predator made Nicole unconsciously tense up. He took a step toward her, away from the console and she couldn't help the grab for her sidearm, resting her hand on the top of the holster. "First of all," the warlock started, glaring at her. " _We_ invited _you_ down here and you come in here and start asking question then call us rude. Second," he held up two fingers for emphasis. "The vanguard knows I'm sending encrypted messages, thank you very much. And third, how _dare_ you. You don't know diddly-squat about me or my business but you come down here and start accusing me of doing something wrong? You barely know my name. I don't even get a hello, how you doing? Nothing, just 'that's suspicious!'. In the name of the Traveler, no wonder you got no fireteam." He turned back to the console in a huff.

Nicole glared at his back for several long moments. She would have felt bad for making the wrong assumptions about him, but then again, he was nothing but a filthy hypocrite himself. She didn't have a fireteam by choice. Not because she couldn't keep one, like him. No, she chose to go in alone. He knew nothing about her either. He had no idea what she had been through and he had no right to speak.

"And FYI, my order is very secretive and will not accept any messages unless they're encrypted in a specific way." He wasn't looking at her, his back turned to her as he started typing away again so he didn't know of the glare she was attempting to light his back on fire with.

Her ghost glared from her shoulder, and both were silent for a moment. She closed her eyes and sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. He knew nothing about her and had no right to make nasty assumptions about her. But if she stayed angry whenever everyone else did that, she would end up being in a perpetual fit of rage. So she let it go, like she did for everyone else. This warlock was no one special. Just another person too stupid or too caught up in their own crap to care about anything or anyone else.

 _Which order?_

She stepped closer until she was directly beside him. "What order are you with?" Her ghost asked, calming down himself as he fed off of her emotions.

Rest glanced over at her. "Ever heard of Osiris?"

"Crazy Darkness obsessed warlock who the vanguard exiled. What about him?"

"Well, he runs a cozy cult out in the Reef. Well, who knows where he is really, but many of his disciples live in the Dark and Light of the Reef. And the Queen doesn't mind him. Managed to convince them to let me join even though I'm still in active duty. And pretty young. Did you know that most warlocks don't have to fight to get into an order? Yeah, most orders clammer for any newborns to join them 'cause the bigger the better, right? Not so much the Order of Osiris. They like old men who hate the idiocracy that is the City politics."

"Guessing you already hate it?"

"Bloody stupid, it is."

"How did you get in if they're so exclusive?"

He stopped his typing for a second to raise a fist and shake it at the air. "So much ass kissing my face turned brown."

Between the gesture, the metaphor, and the disgusted look on his face, Nicole couldn't help the little laugh that escaped her. Just a little hiccup of a giggle, and barely audible in the noise outside the open the door behind them. But Rest heard her and suddenly she was the focus of a thousand watt stare. It lasted less than a second and his green eyes were back on the screen like he hadn't looked in her direction at all.

"So you _can_ make noise. Why don't you talk?"

Ah, yes. That question. She frowned, and looked down and away. She caught him look back at her again from the corner of her eye and she threw a quick glare at him.

"That's none of your business," her ghost said rather firmly.

And it wasn't. He didn't need to know why she didn't (couldn't) speak. Why she chose (forced herself) to be silent. He didn't deserve to know her so well, to know her nightmares. No one should carry that curse. No one but her.

The warlock threw his arms up and exclaimed rather loudly, "Well _excuuuuuuse_ me!" People all reacted differently to her. Hunters had the closest thing to understanding, they would usually ignore her. Titans would call her stupid for wasting a valuable asset. And warlocks usually pried. So she was a little surprised when he didn't. "Didn't mean to be rude, mysterious mute girl. My bad. I was just trying to get to know you a little better besides you thinking I was betraying the City by sending out messages."

"Yes, but now we know why-" Her ghost started.

"Exactly, and now I'm less suspicious, right? Well, you're a weird mute hunter and I was trying to make you less weird, but whatever floats your pretty little boat, okay."

If he planned to say more about it, it was cut off by his ghost perking up. "Got the ping, green light. Friendly on the other end."

Rest turned away from her. "Oh good. You got the package ready?"

"Yup, we're good. Running encryption now. Complete. Good to send."

"Please do. Keep a line in for a response."

"Got it."

The exchange happened so fast, Rest and the ghost speaking back and forth so quickly it was like one started talking before the other finished. She watched them for a couple more seconds before snorting and shaking her head. The warlock was definitely young. Using the telepathic bond with his ghost but not mindspeaking? What a weirdo. Or just seriously inexperienced.

He looked at her when she snorted, finally straightening after being bent over the console for so long. He smiled malevolently, curling his hands beneath his chin. "Oh I'm sorry, are you put off by being called weird. Well, you are just the prettiest little snowflake, princess." His voice was high with false sweetness and Nicole caught herself nearly laughing again.

Her ghost beat her to the punch, starring Rest dead in the eye. "You are so full of shit." His deadpan could have killed a cabal.

Rest dropped his arms and threw his head back in a rich, full body laugh that lasted several moments. It was almost enough for Nicole to crack a smile. But she decided she had gotten familiar enough as it was. She shook her head again and headed for the door.

"If you're done, can we get on with our mission?" Her ghost called from her shoulder as she walked away.

* * *

"Damn, I mean I know the intel said a tank and all but I was really hoping maybe we could catch him with it, I don't know, in the shop or something?"

Nicole rolled her eyes but didn't respond otherwise. Dumb warlock. She scanned the field below them again. It was obvious this battalion was not expecting a retaliation yet. The perimeter was sparsely patrolled, the tank that had Rest so concerned was sitting idle in a fuel station. The Bracus himself was nearby, at a console. She counted maybe three dozen troops in all. Mostly legionaries, a few packs of psions, and a colossus. Their target was standing out in the open, nearly a clear shot. It might take her two simply to break the console screen he was working at.

If they could kill the Bracus before he went into the tank, they could just leave and not have to deal with the heavy artillery. Then again, Nicole figured that the vanguard would want the tank destroyed. It _had_ been noted in the report after all.

Her ghost appeared between them, hidden under the ridge of the dune they were all using for cover. "We could try sniping down our target from afar. Then destroying the tank without him to pilot it."

"Got enough bullets for that? 'Cause I don't carry snipers."

The ghost swiveled to look at him. "Not even one in your inventory?"

"Can't hit the broadside of a barn." He shrugged, completely unperturbed by his apparent lack of ability.

Nicole gave him a once over. He had a handcannon of questionable quality and a fusion rifle strapped to his back. Not a long range fighter. Hadn't he said he wasn't good at close quarters either? So what was he good at? Maybe he lied about the short range thing to get the titan off his back? The huntress wasn't sure but she was already starting to feel the heaviness of the 'I have to do everything myself' train of thought that usually came with working with incompetent guardians. They weren't all bad, and she knew that they mostly had their own strengths. But it made her miss the good days of working with a fireteam that matched her own skill level.

She sighed heavily and tried to shake the thoughts off. Now was really not the time. She caught the warlock turn to look at her and she could almost feel the face he made, but it was lost beneath his helmet.

"We can at least snipe down the target from here," her ghost relayed to the warlock. Nicole went back to watching the base below through her spyglass.

Rest made a noise beside her that managed to sound annoyed and oddly pained at the same time. "And what about the tank?"

"We'll deal with it once the Bracus is dead."

She could feel his gaze on her and she finally looked at him. The way he lay beside her in the sand, she could actually feel in the incredulous way he watched her. She tilted her head questioningly. Her ghost started to ask but Rest shook his head and looked away before he could.

"I'll run distraction. If the psions are too busy shooting at me, then maybe they won't think to hop in the tank before you can destroy it."

 _Oh right, the psions._ She had actually forgotten about them. Usually the tanks were piloted by the higher positioned cabal. They only let the psions pilot their ships. Not so much the heavy artillery. Don't give the slave too much power, after all. But that didn't mean it was unheard of for psions to hop into unoccupied tanks and turn their fury against guardians.

He was already standing and brushing the sand off of his front before Nicole had a chance to agree with his course of action or not. She reached out lightning fast, grabbing his forearm in an iron grip. She did not like this at all. If she could have her way, no would ever have to run out into danger. She could just sneak them through everything; that's what she was good at. But she knew that nothing was ever that easy. Sure, she could snipe down the Bracus before he realized he was even being shot at, but the warlock was right about the tank. It was going to be a problem regardless of who they focused on. She could take out the target in under a minute. The tank would require more bullets, and more time. Someone needed to provide cover fire, and if the warlock couldn't do long range, he _had_ to go down there.

"What?" he asked. She'd just grabbed his arm and froze, she realized. Her ghost was watching her too, confused as to what to relay from the swirl of her thoughts.

She sighed and let him go, her face hot beneath her helmet. "Be careful," her ghost finally said. She pulled up her sniper and aimed down the scope, getting the Bracus in her crosshairs.

The warlock snorted. She could almost hear him calling her a weirdo beneath his breath but she decided to ignore him. She risked a glance in his direction, seeing him poised to start his own assault the moment she fired the first shot. She watched him take a steadying breath and the lines of his shoulder grow hard and straight.

Right. He was ready. She steadied her aim, took a breath herself and pulled the trigger. The first shot punched through the console's glass screen and staggered the Bracus. The second shot shattered the glass completely. By the third there was a flurry of movement around him, but it didn't matter at all for the target. His helmet was punctured and the pressure inside became too much. It flew off like a rocket, followed by the gush of the black oil inside. He slumped over the console controls, dead.

She reloaded, watching the battle the warlock had started begin to unfold. He had made a beeline for the tank, sliding beneath it and using its bulk as cover from the colossus. He shot at any psions that dared to get to close, but had only managed to actually kill one. As soon as the rifle was ready she started unloading shots into the hover engines.

She destroyed three of the engines, but couldn't reach the fourth. Not that it mattered if she could. She holstered the now empty sniper and pulled the scout from her inventory in a fizzle of light. She scrambled to her feet and started the awkward leaping slide down the front side of the dune. The warlock had managed to keep the psions off until now but the colossus had lumbered right up to the tank. Either Rest's bullets did no damage to the giant's armor, or it just didn't care. Regardless, it was pissed that the warlock was using their own artillery as a turtle shell.

It physically pushed the tank away, uncovering the warlock lying beneath it taking potshots at its feet. Nicole was moving as fast as she could, arc energy snapping around her before she even pulled her blade. The colossus picked the warlock up in its massive hand and tossed him like a piece of trash into the wall of the temporary base with enough force that Nicole even heard his body hit over all the other noise in the claustrophobic space.

She wasted no more time, tossing a sticky grenade on the last engine and pulling her arc blade in nearly the same movement. She tore through the psions and legionaries, moving too fast for the colossus to get a bead on her with either his gatling gun or rockets. He was still too close to the tank so that when it finally blew apart the giant took much of the explosion, staggering him and at last damaging his armor. By the time he recovered Nicole was ripping her blade from the last psion, the arc energy dissipating around her. She turned and took a knee, the rocket launcher appearing on her shoulder in a snap of light particles, the blade dropping to the sand beside her. The colossus ate two rockets before his armor finally gave way, and the spray of black oil hitting the sand was the last sound in the temporary base.

The rocket launcher dissipated into light again as Nicole stood and took a glance around at the carnage. Cabal bodies littered the ground, the tank was in pieces, and the fuel pump it was connected to still burning. The Bracus was slumped over the console, glass sticking out from his bloated face. She took a breath again, her hammering heart finally beginning to calm.

She looked over in the direction the warlock had been tossed, seeing him struggling awkwardly to get out of the cluster of boxes he had landed in. He looked fine now, so if the colossus had done any damage, his ghost had already put him back together. She sighed quietly, in both relief that he was okay, and exasperation at his general presence.

"That was badass!" he yelled, still fighting to free himself. He almost had it, but got his leg caught in a crevice at the last second, plummeting him back down to the sand with a short yell. He promptly started to laugh at his own clumsiness and didn't immediately move to free himself.

Nicole couldn't help the snort. The vanguard thought this guy was a threat? He was no more than a bumbling idiot. It was a wonder that he was a warlock at all. She walked over and helped him get his leg loose.

"Really! That was so amazing! I never seen someone do anything like that! You were like woosh, bam, boom! Everything's dead! Holy crap, that was so cool!" He gushed at her while he climbed to his feet, using his arms for grander and grander gestures until he was nearly flailing in excitement. It was ridiculous and she wanted to slap him. While the flattery was kind of nice, there was something about they way he was so cheerful about it that rang false. "Where did you learn to do all that?"

She watched him for a long moment. Something was off about him now. Was he nervous about something? He was too friendly, too cheerful, too in her face. He had been mostly quiet and stuck to himself but now he seemed to babble without end.

"Absolutely amazing! Tarios wasn't a bad fighter either, but he could be kind of clumsy with his use of heavy weapons. You know one time he blew _me_ up? Although in hindsight, I think it was on purpose. I was annoying him. But he had annoyed me. Started calling me Peaches 'cause I found a new chest piece that happened to be pink and I hadn't gotten any new shaders yet, so I was stuck being pink for a few days but it was such a nice chest piece. He called me Peaches which was really annoying…" he went on like that for nearly the whole walk up the hill, barely even pausing to get a breath between sentences.

Nicole had had enough before they had even reached the top of the dune. So by the time she did, she spun on him, slapping the front of his helmet a few times. It was effective, stunning him into silence.

"Did you hit your head or something? What is wrong with you?" Her ghost relayed for her.

"Nothing is wrong, I've just decided I like you." He shrugged and walked past her. He finished telling her shortly about Tarios blowing him up, managing not to get sidetracked by telling her something else.

Nicole was too honestly shocked to be annoyed by him. _He likes me? But… why?_ Because she had saved his life? No, that couldn't be it. It wasn't like she had _really_ saved him. He hadn't even needed to be revived. People admired her, especially the younger guardians she sometimes mentored, but none of them had suddenly just… opened up like that.

She watched him mount his sparrow, still a bit shocked. "I'm going to get a head start, since my sparrow is slower and all." He took off, leaving her still standing there.

She wasn't sure how to feel. The turnaround was astounding. He had said so much all of a sudden. The sarcasm and general foulness of his attitude had vanished. Despite the babbling, he was more pleasant in the last fifteen minutes than he had been the entire time they had been spying on their target, which had taken hours. He liked her, and that made a warmth spread in her chest. Somebody _liked_ her. Didn't care that she was mute or cold, but genuinely _liked_ her.

 _Stay silent and hidden. Stay safe._

She shivered, the sudden cold in her body seizing her limbs and paralyzing her. What was she thinking? She hardly knew him. He hardly knew _her._ He was impressed by her ability. He didn't know anything. He was just another young guardian easily impressed. He didn't know enough to care.

 _Stay safe._

She bit her lip, hard enough to feel it begin to split. The warlock was just another background light. He knew nothing and she couldn't trust him. Couldn't let herself get attached. She was a fool for even being moved by his words.

* * *

She still beat him to their ships. The ride had helped to clear her head. Her ghost had healed her lip. Everything was fine. She was _fine._ She was prepping her ship when he finally pulled up. She looked down on him from where she was standing on the hull of her ship, the cockpit glass open like a mouth.

"You need a faster sparrow," her ghost commented.

She almost caught his reaction but it was so short that she chalked it up to momentary irritation. "I know," he replied. "I need new weapons too, but hey. I don't actually do enough missions to have a steady source of glimmer."

She tilted her head curiously, but her ghost didn't get a chance to pose the question before Rest was answering.

"You saw me today," he said with a self-deprecating laugh. "I'm a mess of a fighter, but give me a project and you can bet I'll find out what you need." He took off his helmet so she could see his grin. "But anyway. I'll see you back at the Tower?" He walked over to his own ship, the engines coming to life as his ghost started the prep sequence. He turned back to watch her, like he was waiting for her to leave first.

There was something almost snake like in his gaze, and it made the hair on her neck stand up. He was watching her suddenly very carefully. She fought the urge to twitch. No, he was always watching her closely. That had been the second time he had answered something that her ghost had not relayed. No, the third time if she counted the time in the Tower when they first met. He'd been watching her way too closely. It made her tense, feeling almost naked beneath his emerald gaze now.

Concern flashed across his face for a moment, innocent curiosity that completely replaced the calculation that had been there not seconds before. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

She didn't like him. She didn't trust him. Everything about him seemed false, and a part of her was trying to reason that she was being paranoid, but another part was screaming that something was wrong with him. He was hiding something.

She said nothing, told her ghost to remain silent and glared at him from beneath her mask. She wanted to go home; she wanted to get away from him. He was too confusing, too observant. No one should be able to speak directly to her like he was trying to. No one should be able to make her feel warm on the inside like he had. No one should make her feel anything ever again. No one should make her miss _him_ like this stupid, foolish, idiotic warlock was.

She turned in a huff and climbed into her ship, closing the hatch and dunking herself into the cool, dark silence of her ship. She took off her helmet and ignored how he was still standing by his ship, looking like a lost puppy.

* * *

 _Afterword: So yeah, that update drop, man. All my bros want to play PoE. But its so easy i'm kind of disappointed. Guess I'd gotten so used to banging my head against dick face oryx several times a week for that 320 class item I never got... Anyway. The point is. I spent all week playing Destiny instead of writing for Destiny. Which was why nothing really happened. Shit was suppose to happen, besides Nicole being a badass and all._

 _It's actually kind of funny because I'm so used to writing things from Aydin's pov which mostly consists of "oh shit things are shooting at me, throw fire at it", coz he's a big baby half the time. But Nicole is a badass no matter what and I had fun._

 _Thank you to forrestfire21 for the review. Glad you enjoyed it!_


	3. How He Flew

3\. _Or That Time He Humiliated Nicole, Then Laughed About It._

Nicole disengaged the warp and the jump ship shuddered as it fell out of slipspace. The inky blackness of space chased out the light of the warp, dropping her into darkness and silence. The secondary engines cycled on, filling the cabin with the familiar rumble. She reached up and opened the view screen filter. Earth-light filled the cabin, shining off the controls and making her pale skin glow even more than it usually did.

She sighed heavily and sank back into the chair. Her ghost could pilot from here, so she let go of the controls completely and closed her eyes. That mission had taken more out of her than she had thought it would. Not so much the Cabal, but the warlock. She just couldn't shake how weird he made her feel. And it wasn't all good feelings, either.

There was something seriously off about him. He seemed so artificial but she wasn't about to say she knew him all that well, either. In fact, she knew nearly nothing about him. He was a sunsinger. He had to be young, but she never thought to ask him how young. His ghost was so protective of him he couldn't be much older than a year. Whatever they were hiding, the ghost was in on it too, was even all aboard on protecting and hiding whatever it was. So at the very least it couldn't be all that treasonous.

He was an idiot, that much was clear. A babbling idiot, so it couldn't have been anything so bad. He might have already told her what it was but she couldn't keep his rants in focus long enough to know. And man, could he talk. In just the fifteen minute trek up the hill, he had told her three different stories about the titan that he had been working with last, all the while still trying to only tell her one. He had the attention span of thrall at best.

And for all that talking, she couldn't actually remember finding any meaningful information in it. She wasn't sure if that was just empty headed hot air spewing from him, or a carefully calculated distraction.

She sat up straighter, scrubbing her hair and face in frustration. She didn't know what to think. He seemed so empty and dumb. Just an idiot, who happened to be a warlock. Warlocks were always a little weird. She never really liked working with them. Even the dumb ones were too smart for their own pants. And maybe that was it. He was an idiot in the end, a dumb guy who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the only thing that was really tripping her out was whenever his weird warlock nature came out and made him look less dumb for more than two seconds.

The only reason she was suspicious of him at all was because the vanguard was. All over a single titan's accusation, and the warlock's apparent want to be a recluse. Which she did think was a bit strange. Usually reclusiveness was a hunter thing. But she also supposed it wasn't completely unheard of for warlocks to like their loneliness. She figured it might make it easier for them to do whatever they did when they weren't pretending to be smartasses.

She sighed again, louder this time, and flopped back in the chair hard enough to make it creak. She didn't want to be thinking about this. She would rather be thinking about Venus, or that pretty dagger that Eva had been toting the other day. It had a wonderful balance and a beautiful violet ribbon around the hilt. It had been so expensive that she wasn't sure she wanted to spend so much glimmer on something practically useless.

And Venus this time of year was so pleasant. The warm breezes made sunbathing glorious and comfortable. And she could just sit in safe silence and listen to the wildlife stir. No pressing missions to do. No newborns to save. No dumb warlock that made her think of-

She jolted, opening her eyes and staring up at the top of the cockpit. That was why she hated him. Why she found she kind of liked him. He made her think of them. Her old fireteam. Her friends. He was confusing and odd and made her pay attention. He captured her gaze, and not just because the vanguard told her to watch him. Because he was the first person in a long time she couldn't just look at and have all figured out. Just like…

The name fell silent from her lips, gliding away from her and lost to the emptiness. She made no noise, but she could still feel his name there, on her tongue, on the edge of her hearing. She couldn't remember what her own voice sounded like, so lost in the silence, trapped behind the stone in her throat.

She blinked away the tears in her eyes, looking over to where her ghost was floating between her and the heavenly view of the Earth. He clicked at her, a quiet question that needed no words. He knew the answer, and it was more a way of him telling her he was there for her. She thought about them all the time but it had been so long since they felt so close.

She sat up a little more, giving her ghost a shaken smile. _I'm alright._ And she was. Or she would be soon enough.

"Well, that's good…" he replied, sounding distracted. His optic slid from her face, moving down and away until he was staring at the floor between them. "Because we have a problem."

She tilted her head, reaching up to wipe her face clean. It would be a welcome distraction, even if it was a problem. She flicked her hand at him, feeling his guilt at giving her bad news when she was already so tired. _What's wrong?_ She asked gently, beckoning him closer.

"Well. You see. Rest. He never dropped out of the warp."

She sat up straighter suddenly, launching forward to open the view screen wider. She couldn't see his ship, changing the screen in front of her to get a full scan of the observable darkness from the cameras on different points of the hull. No ship. It wasn't that she hadn't believed her ghost, but she had still wanted to make sure he wasn't wrong before she potentially went on a rampage. _What the hell is he doing then? Where did he go?_

"I don't know!" Her ghost said, a little too loud for the small space. "But he didn't dro-" He cut off, his shell expanding in a flash of light.

 _What is it? Is he going to Venus?_ Wasn't there rumors that Osiris lived on Mercury or something? Maybe he was going there? _Can you find him, track his ghost, something?_

"I'm trying." The ship lurched, the engines rumbling louder in the cockpit as the ghost piloted. "He's dropped out of warp now. Closer to Earth than we did. He landed practically in the atmosphere."

Nicole had very distinct memories of getting lectured by Holliday, the vanguard, occasionally Dead Orbit reps, and just about every civilian engineer in the hangar bay, that if you can't hit the warp drop point accurately for whatever reason, you should always drop before, never after. Or you could potentially end up in a place where you shouldn't. Like inside the Earth, for example.

 _Are they responding to hails? Is his ship malfunctioning?_ It was a piece of shit. At least that was what she thought of it when she saw him prep it in the hangar that morning. It was astounding it was even capable of hitting warp.

"No, and no. No response from them. And I can't actually tell from here but it doesn't look like it's crashing, persay."

 _Persay…?_

"Well, it isn't exactly graceful."

She couldn't see him out the viewscreen, but she could almost imagine the hasty drop through the atmosphere he was attempting. Post warp speeds were usually so high, you had to give yourself room to slow down. He had more than inertia dragging him in, but gravity too. His ship could very well burn up from the atmospheric friction. Most ships were made to withstand high heat and friction, but then again that thing really was a piece of shit. She wouldn't be surprised if he had found it in an old junk yard and somehow bribed Holliday to put a warp engine on it.

 _Can you follow him?_

Her ship lurched again seemingly in response, the ghost changing their direction just enough to follow the warlock's path. "I've lost track of him, blipped out under a cloud cover. I will try."

Nicole sat back in her chair and buckled the harness. What was this stupid warlock doing? The vanguard had warned him against such behavior, so why was he doing this? Wasn't he in enough trouble? Why did he have to make her life so much harder than it had to be?

They flew in the upper atmosphere for a long time after that, her ghost silent in its attempt to track the warlock down. Nicole couldn't even get her mind around it. Why do something this stupid not even a day after the vanguard told him not to.

"Ah!" Her ghost exclaimed beside her, then stopped again. "Oh hmm. Damn."

 _Did you find him?_

"For a second then he was gone again. He must be using some kind of cloaking technology."

She made a face. To be honest, she kind of wanted to scream. _But why?!_

Her ghost glanced at her, spinning its shell in a way that was somehow reminiscent of a shrug. "Where would a warlock even get cloaking tech? I don't know but that's what it looks like." It paused for a second, buzzing again. "But he does seem to be going over the North American Dead Zone, eastern seaboard region."

 _What's there?_ Nothing of any note that she could think of. The Manhattan Nuclear Zone, but that was still a hotbed of poison that even the Fallen steered clear of. Minimal Fallen activity overall, there wasn't much there after the bombs fell. Nothing safe to scavenge, anyway.

The ghost took her ship low suddenly, dipping below the clouds they were using for cover from the ground. Nicole sat up a little straighter to try and get a look at the ground slipping past beneath them. Clusters of building barely visible in the snowy landscape, interlaced with patches of black and white forest. In the far distance she could see a crashed Ketch, its nose buried deep in the earth and its engines long dead. It looked like it had been there for centuries. To the east, the water was littered with boats half sunk and groups of building still tall enough to peek out over the risen ocean waves.

She still couldn't see his ship anywhere, or really any place someone would even think to land a ship. Just before she could ask what they were doing, something large and suspiciously orange zipped past the viewscreen, close enough that the whole ship rumbled in the slipstream.

 _What the heck was that?_ It had been painted the same obnoxious shade that Rest's piece of junk had been, so really, she knew the answer. Her ghost didn't reply verbally, instead turning the nose of her ship skyward to follow. _What is going on? He came down here, then is going back to orbit?_

That's what it looked like he was doing, anyway. She could see the little bastard now, following the flying orange scrap heap was even easier once they broke above the clouds. He shot straight up through the atmosphere, breaking into low orbit faster than she thought that thing possible. Not that her ship had to struggle to keep up.

She only realized something was up when her ghost gave a great big sigh that sounded so incredibly annoyed. She finally took her eyes from the ship out her viewscreen to look at the orb at her shoulder. _What…?_

She didn't get to finish her question before it blew to pieces before her eyes. She looked back in time to watch the light fade in a snap of the vacuum, the pieces already beginning to drift down into the atmosphere to be burned away to nothing.

The scrap heap was gone. _What just…?_ She sat back in the seat a little more, gaping open mouthed and wide-eyed at the darkness above them. _Where…?_

The holoscreen above the control panel flickered to life, an obnoxious laugh coming through the speakers in her ship as the transmission cleared up, filling the silence of space with a voice Nicole never wanted to hear again. Her ghost was spinning his shell rapidly in obvious irritation, the sound of the electronic whirring the only thing keeping the hunter from punching the face on the holoscreen.

"Looks like this dumb warlock just outsmarted a hunter." Rest's voice filtered through the ship, smug arrogance dripping from every word. If he was there with her, she would have definitely slapped him a new face. As it were, he smiled inanely from behind the screen, cheeky and sly. His ghost floated behind him, managing to look triumphant with the way it seemed to stare down at her.

The message was pre-recorded and started to loop immediately. Her ghost shut it down before Rest had even finished his second round of laughter. Nicole's face felt hot, her whole body thrumming with rage. Her vision warbled and she felt herself clenching her hands around the armrests of her chair.

"Nicole…" Her ghost called softly, grounding her in the present.

She took a calming breath and tried to sink into her chair as much as she could make herself. She glanced at him a moment later and tried to conjure a coherent question but all that she could seemed to come up with was, _what what what what what…?_

"I'm… I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm just as confused by his actions as you are."

 _But… where did this come from?_ Who was he acting out against, her or the vanguard? And why? Why was he being so childish and petty? Sure, she'd known warlocks to be both of those things plenty of times before, but they usually sobered in the face of a direct order from the vanguard. But it was as if direct orders had brought this whole thing on.

"What do we do now?"

They couldn't go back to the vanguard. While the temptation to dig him into as much trouble as absolutely possible was strong, she wanted to know why he had done all of this. And if she ratted him out, she would never get that answer. Furthermore, she couldn't imagine having the vanguard punish him would be very helpful. Also, as a small note to herself, that she would probably never admit to anyone. Ever. She didn't want them knowing that she had actually managed to lose track of him. How were they supposed to trust her to keep track of Fallen vandal packs if she couldn't even keep an eye on one dumb warlock.

 _Keep an eye out for him. He can't stay hidden forever. And the moment he reappears, we hunt him down._

* * *

 _Afterword: Sorry it's shorter, but I hoped you enjoyed anyway._

 _Again a great big thank you to forrestfire21 for leaving a review. I'm glad you are enjoying it. :D_


	4. How They Talked

4\. _Or That Time Nicole Thought She Made Some Progress_

Nicole received a transmission two hours later. She had nearly managed to doze off, even in the uncomfortable cockpit chair, but the blipping of the alarm on the holoscreen jolted her awake. She sat up a little straighter, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her ghost was beside her, looking for all the world as kicked-puppy as a ghost could managed.

She tilted her head in confusion but didn't pose the question just yet. She wanted to know who was trying to contact her. When she saw it was being broadcasted from the Tower, she could swear she felt her face turn a few shades whiter than it already was. It felt like her stomach dropped out of her. She swallowed hard. Had the vanguard found out she had lost him? Were they calling her home to berate her?

She activated the message with bated breath, ready to receive her reprimand. But it was text only, the white printed words illuminating the cockpit a little brighter than the earth-light did.

" _Hurry back to the Tower, love. I can't cash this bounty without you. -your favorite warlock friend"_

She made a noise, somewhere between a growl and an almost yell but all that it managed to actually sound like was a strangled wheeze of air. She actually hit the control panel this time, the lights flickering under the force of her fist slamming into the glass.

For several long moments the only sound in the cockpit was the gentle rumble of the engines and her own heavy breathing. _This… This… WARLOCK!_ Her mind was screaming in rage. How dare he humiliate her like this! That whole wild goose chase, the taunting, and now this? How did he even get back to the Tower already?

She glowered at the ghost, who seemed to shrink away from her, his little light shining in the darkness of the underpanel he was attempting to hide beneath. _Why didn't you tell me he was moving?_

"I-I didn't know. His ghost became trackable moments before that message arrived." He shrunk away from her further, his voice becoming tinier and tinier until he was practically squeaking.

Nicole sat back in her chair, closing her eyes and taking a calming breath. Getting mad at the ghost was not going to help. Her rage and humiliation at the warlock roiled just beneath her skin, but for the moment she managed to contain it. Yes, she wanted to scream, out loud where it would possibly get lost in space, but she knew that she couldn't waste her time doing something so pointless.

She piloted the ship. Mostly because she needed to do something beside stew over her own rage. She needed to be calm when she spoke to the warlock, otherwise she couldn't imagine it would go all that well. So she spent the entire flight home coming up with what to say, running scenarios in her head, pinpointing the right questions and how to pose them so that he might be inclined to answer them.

Of course the moment she emerged from the hangar bay and saw his smug grinning face from where he leaned casually against the Tower railing, all of that planning went out the window. She wanted to push him off the balcony. She practically launched herself at him, storming across the pavilion on a warpath.

The smug grin seemed to melt off his face when he noticed the murderous rage. He took several steps away from her, putting his hands up in surrender. "Now now, no fighting in the Tower. Vanguard rules." He laughed, a big cheeky grin plastered to his stupid face instantly.

Nicole slapped him, hard. The sound of it echoed and turned a few heads. Rest reeled away from the blow, rolling with it better than Nicole had hoped he would. She went in for another but he was backpedaling like a real professional, swatting at her hands as they came for his face.

"Man, if I known you would be such a sore loser, I would have never invited you to play my game." His laugh was more strained this time, and his smile was all but replaced by a very petulant pout that made Nicole want to shove him over the railing even more.

"You think this a game?!" Her ghost screeched, forming his body as he spoke. He got right up in the warlock's face, so close that Rest ducked backward like the ghost would hit him too.

"Well, of course. Isn't everything a game if you can't die?"

She was sure he was trying to get off being all philosophical but she honestly couldn't care less. He had humiliated her, broke direct orders, and had the gall to openly taunt her. Not to mention all the suspicion being pinned on him and he didn't seem to care at all. He wasn't taking any of this seriously at all, and that was a fantastic way to get himself killed. The City needed good, competent soldiers, not dead dumb ones like he was going to end up if he didn't get with the program.

 _You can die, you big idiot! Everyone can die!_

Her ghost was too caught up in his own fit of rage to have heard her, but it was just as well. She decided that she didn't want that relayed a couple seconds after she formed the thought in her head.

"You want to play games, traitor boy. Alright, then. Rumble, tomorrow, 3pm bracket. We'll show you who's the better guardian!"

 _Whoa whoa, back up a second…_

"C-crucible?" Rest squeaked, for a second something unreadable flashing across his face. "I don't think you understand me." He opened his mouth to say more but he suddenly shut it again with a click of his jaw.

His ghost appeared in between them, getting up in her face and blocking her line of sight with Rest, so she couldn't see his face anymore. "We accept your challenge and look forward to it." It turned back the warlock. "Let's go, Aydin. We've done enough."

Nicole almost missed the look he gave the ghost, somewhere between utter disgust and downright terror. It was almost pleading for help, and it lasted less than a second before he was infuriatingly unreadable again. He turned away, his eyes still glued to the ghost, and walked away stiffly.

Nicole stood there for a long moment, watching him go, her hand outstretched as if she were trying to call him back. That… was not how she wanted that to go. Her ghost was floating high above her head, spinning his shell in irritation. He felt her gaze, turning to look back at her, then promptly shrunk away from the glare he received.

 _Crucible? Really?_

"I-what? It seemed like a good idea at the time."

A few years ago, Nicole would have been all aboard for a romp in Rumble, especially if it meant showing that dumb warlock a thing or two. But now the thought of even stepping foot in an arena brought a chill over her that banished the anger. She'd seen too much, watched too many people die for the last time to ever want to play a game like that. She couldn't bring herself to actually lift a weapon against a fellow guardian, even if it was all for the sake of practice or even friendly competition.

She wanted to go after him, tell him that her ghost was dumb. Rescind the challenge at the very least, but he was already gone. She would have to get him later. Just as well. She wanted time to think. The flight down from orbit had not calmed her nearly as much as she hoped it would have. She had still been blindly furious at him. But the threat of crucible was enough to make her willing to swallow it. From his reaction, it didn't seem he was a real fan of crucible either, which would work to her benefit.

She shook her head at her ghost, calling him dumb a few more times as she motioned for him to follow. She was ready to lay down for a while. She would find the warlock later, even if it meant crashing his apartment.

* * *

"He's in the Tower pavilion. His ghost sure is a little ass. Every time I ping them, they shoot back this really annoying burst of static."

Nicole rolled over, dragging the blanket with her and looking over at the orb resting on the bedside table. _How many times have you pinged them since earlier?_

The ghost was quiet for a few moments. "Only a few…" He glanced at her guiltily, his shell scrunching tighter around his optic.

 _Uh huh._

She laid in her bed for a little while longer before finally throwing the blanket off and sitting up. She didn't bother putting on any armor. She was old enough that she felt no qualms in walking around the pavilion in just civilian clothes. She knew that it was a big deal to younger guardians. You always wanted to put on your best gear. But Nicole honestly couldn't bring herself to care. She was beyond trying to impress anyone.

Her ghost floated up from where he had been resting, spinning his shell into motion after sitting still for so long. Nicole put her hand up and shook her head. _No, you stay here. I want to talk to him without you getting overly emotional._

The ghost made an indignant noise. "Overly emotional? What?" She gave him a look, but didn't have to say anything else. He grumbled but flew away, poking himself a cave in the discarded blanket. "Fine, whatever. I'll just be here then. Alone."

She rolled her eyes and pulled on some shoes. She found an old holopad she could use to write with, and was pleased to find that even the battery was still alive. She waved goodbye to the burrowed ghost but he was making a point of ignoring her.

Nicole found the warlock in the Tower pavilion fifteen minutes later, sitting on one of the outer balconies overlooking the City and the Traveler in the distance. He seemed to be carrying on a conversation with someone, she assumed his ghost, out loud, much to her amusement. As she got closer she began to realize it was a half spoken conversation, some words thrown in, mostly mindspoken. She just couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to end up being painfully young and it was starting to really bug her.

She pulled a dagger from her belt and tapped it lightly on the metal railing. Rest spun to look at her, looking far more alarmed than necessary. She gave him a surrender sign and he seemed to relax a little.

"I thought you were someone else," he said softly as she approached. He sounded like he was sulking when he let his gaze slide away from her and back down to the golden lights of the City beneath the Traveller. It lasted less than a second, and when he looked back at her he was sporting that stupid smug little shit-eating grin again. "Couldn't get enough of the warlock love, and came back out for more, eh?"

She rolled her eyes at him and wrote on the board. _I just want to talk._ She tapped it for emphasis, showing him until she was sure he had read it.

"What, no little translator tonight?"

 _He got a little out of hand today, and I'm sorry for that._

He frowned at her, finally for a moment that stupid grin going away. "Don't apologize. It doesn't suit you. Besides, what would your ghost think of you apologizing to a traitor." He turned away to glare out at the City again. He seemed to curl in closer to himself, bringing his knees in and wrapping his arms around them.

She tilted her head and frowned. So that comment earlier had hurt him. She had wondered but he hadn't reacted at the time, so she wasn't sure. She erased most of the previous message until all that was left was, _I'm sorry._

She tapped the board with the hilt of the knife to get his attention, but he didn't look at her. She sighed quietly. So yes, the warlock was capable of showing feelings besides smug arrogance. Good to know. Him sulking was not helping, however. She hopped over the rail and came to sit down next to him, holding the board out in front of them both so he had to look at it. She didn't pull it away until she was sure she saw his eyes glance down to it.

It was only being this close that she noticed his ghost, sitting nestled in the unbuttoned crevice of his collar. It was staring at her, again. For some reason she waved at it. Mostly because she hadn't expected it to be there, but also because she still naked beneath its searching eye. It blinked in response, and finally took its gaze from her and back to the city down below.

They didn't say anything for a long time. The warlock was silent, refusing to look at her. The ghost too had started to ignore her. Nicole would have considered it a small victory if she could only shake the feeling she was intruding on something. It wasn't uncommon for ghosts to seek personal closeness with their guardians. Especially young guardians. She remembered her early days when her ghost would sleep on the pillow beside her, simply to be near.

After a few minutes, she decided she couldn't take the awkward silence anymore and started writing on the board again. _I'm rescinding the crucible challenge._ She put the board in his line of sight and tapped on it with the hilt to get his attention.

He glanced at it, then at her sidelong, untrusting. "Why? Afraid you'll lose?" The smirk was back, much to Nicole's chagrin.

 _No, I don't like crucible._ And if her instincts were right, neither did he.

"Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night. But I would have won anyway. I always win."

Uh huh, right. Dumb annoying warlock. _Why did you break orders today. You could be in a lot of trouble if I told the vanguard what happened._

He shrugged. "Why ruin the game just because Ikora is a nosey little toad. She just wants in on my business because I don't work directly for the main warlock order anymore. She doesn't like what she can't control." The amount of derisive irritation in his voice was enough to tip her off that Nicole was not the target of his foul play, she just happened to be the messenger.

 _So, you play this 'game' to mess with the vanguard?_

"To put it simply."

 _If you're so against the vanguard, why are you still living in the Tower?_

He gave her a look that bordered between confusion and irritation. "You think… No, you don't understand." He looked off at the City. "I'm not against the vanguard. I don't like the City politics. The Consensus, the internal struggles, the sheer bureaucracy. I feel like our resources should be put toward- should be directed outward. Finding allies out there, instead of alienating everyone in here."

 _Out where?_

He looked up at her from the board, his eyes lighting up in excitement. He turned to toward her, his whole body language opening up to her. He opened his mouth to speak but his ghost interrupted. "Aydin." That was all it said, and whatever was left unsaid swallowed all the friendliness from the warlock's demeanor.

He frowned and turned away again, sitting back in his curled position, overlooking the City. "I'm still a guardian," he said before she could ask anything else. "I still want to protect this City. It's still my home, and those people down there are still- they still need my protection. All of our protection. I'm not betraying anyone."

 _I don't really think you're a traitor._ And it was the truth. This warlock was too vapid at any given time to be harboring any kind of secret that could of any real danger to the City. It had to be a simple mistake. Between him just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his general distaste for the City politics, it would be simple for paranoid minds to see him doing wrong by someone.

He looked at her, honest shock on his face. He started to turn toward her again, much to Nicole's relief. She wanted him to open up to her. It would make him much easier to work with if he trusted her.

"Really?"

She nodded, smiling.

"Well," he smiled back. It was a bit frail, but it wasn't that stupid smug smirk anymore. So far, it was the best expression she'd seen yet. "That's good to know. Thanks, I guess." They were quiet for a moment. His ghost was watching her again, but it was less of a glare now than it had ever been. "So, you're going to give the vanguard a good report, then?"

 _I will tell them the truth._

He didn't reply right away, instead he seemed to chew on that response for a moment. After a while of silence, he finally uncurled, long legs stretching out in front of him, his arms behind him so that they supported his weight when he leaned back. He wasn't in his armor, she realized. The long coat had fooled her for a while, but now looking at him spread out beside her she realized it was civilian clothes. Maybe he wasn't that young after all.

"Can I trust you with a secret?"

She'd been so caught up in his clothes for a moment (warlocks and their damn coats) that she was caught off guard by question (it was a damn fine coat now that she was looking at it and she wanted to know where he got it because she wanted one). _Sure._

His ghost was looking at him instead of her for once. "Aydin," it said again. Nicole realized, much to her vexation, that it was a warning.

"I'll show you what I'm hiding in the deadzone. It's kinda cool. But you can't tell anyone. But that way you can tell the truth, y'know."

"Aydin, what are you doing?"

"It's okay, Verz."

There was that quick back and forth exchange that should have been mindspoken but wasn't for some reason and Nicole finally had to ask. _How old are you?_

"That's a random question," he commented. "Well, let's see. I met those hunters in the first few weeks, then Dak not that long-"

"Aydin!"

"That was, what would you say Verz, two months ago?"

The ghost was looking visibly agitated, floating up out of his collar to look at both guardians. "Three."

"Wow, has it been that long? So that's what? Four?" The ghost made an approximation of a nod. "Four months then. I've only been with my order for maybe a month and a half now. But that when all that trouble with the vanguard started."

She just stared at him for long time. Four months? She couldn't even remember when she had been four months old. She was closing in on eight years herself. He was practically a newborn.

"What? Why are you staring?"

She shook her head. She supposed she was expecting that. Perhaps not quite that young. Six months maybe. But not four. _What kind of secret that I can't tell anyone?_

The change of subject seemed to perplex him for a second but he recovered instantly. "Nothing bad. Just that I don't want treasure hunters nosing around in my stuff." He shrugged, climbing to his feet. "We'll do that instead of crucible, okay?"

She nodded, offering him another smile.

He returned it, much to her pleasure. "Good. I'll meet you here tomorrow around three then." He waved her goodnight and left her sitting on the balcony in the quiet of the midnight Tower.

She looked out over the City, enjoying the view for a long time. This was good progress. Amazing what a little talking could do. She had finally managed to wipe that goddamn smirk off his face. And he gave her some honestly pleasant reactions to boot. So she had to be a little more personable with him than she would normally but it was worth it if it meant his cooperation. Hopefully this assignment would go quicker now and she could get on with her life without having a warlock strapped to her at any given time.

She wasn't worried about that secret of his. From the sound of it, he had just found a salvage spot he didn't want to share. But when you were young and constantly short on glimmer like he no doubt was, you were allowed to be a little selfish with your treasure hunting. She knew she wasn't innocent of hoarding things herself.

She returned to her apartment shortly afterward, in a much better mood then when she left it. She found the ghost still hiding in her blanket sulking, and curled him in the crook of her neck as apology. He seemed happy there so she fell asleep with him cuddled next to her.

* * *

He was out in the Tower at three when she came looking for him. She had spent the morning and early afternoon patrolling Venus. She had asked him if he wanted to come but he told her he was content to "work on this damn report", as he had put it. Just as well. It had given her time to relax and recoup from the day before. And she could visit her favorite places without having to drag a warlock around with her.

"We should take my ship," he said as she approached him. He was leaning casually against the railing, wearing a brownish red armor shader today. Nicole had gone with blues and yellows for today's look and immediately felt good about the decision. While he didn't look half bad, the color the shader turned his chest piece was not quite the same shade of red it had turned his arm braces. It wasn't complimentary and Nicole knew she looked much better than him again. Much to her instant disappointment, he didn't seem to notice. Or really even care, for that matter.

"What, that piece of-" Nicole knew what her ghost was going to blurt out and shot out her hands to cup him out of the air, cutting off what he was going to say.

Rest had started to turn away but he stopped when her ghost had spoken, turning to look at them both with very obvious indignation written on his face. "What?"

She shook her head and waved for him to lead on.

"No, no, what were you going to say about my ship?"

Verz appeared at the warlock's shoulder as he spoke, spinning its shell in what Nicole could only guess was amusement. "We built that ship," it said, half laughing, but the challenge in its voice was obvious.

That would explain the cloaking technology. And also the hodgepodge look it had to it. It didn't have the professional touch Holiday managed to instill on most of the ships she made. Nicole nodded, smiling encouragingly, and waved for him to lead again.

The flight out to the North American Deadzone was surprisingly smooth. Despite its broken down nature, the ship did run fairly smoothly. She only a little impressed, and it was because she was kind of expecting it to fall apart at any moment. That's what it looked like from the outside, but it ran like he knew what he was doing, so she gave him that one. A warlock with technical expertise was rare. And at so young, he could really grow into someone impressive.

He lowered the ship over the water, and that's when she realized why he wanted to bring his own ship. Most guardian ships weren't equipped for water landings. Sure, they could float, but they weren't meant to stay there for so long. It was for emergencies. But he was perfectly confident setting the ship down in the water, and when it crashed into the low waves, it bobbed and rose back up. They emerged from the cockpit, Nicole pushing out first to look at the floaties that were being used as landing gear. She kind of wanted to laugh. It was a little brilliant. The only problem was that they were surrounded on all sides by a rather expansive bit of water. The ocean spread out to the east, and the shore was at least a mile west of them.

Rest seemed in no way troubled by this, climbing out of the ship behind her and dropping down the landing gear. She expected him to dive into the water below them but when he landed, it was on something shallow, only knee high.

"Low tide," he explained. "This place is covered in buildings from centuries ago. During low tide, you can stand on them."

She leapt down to him, the water sloshing around her legs. "Will the ship be okay here? It's a bit out in the open don't you think?" Her ghost appeared at her shoulder to ask for them both.

"Why not," the warlock shrugged. "Fallen can't swim."

"Really?"

It was kind of an odd thing, but now that she thought about it, she had never actually seen a Fallen swim.

"Well, they can, but their basic armor isn't suited for the pressure. Their masks decompress real fast and ether is highly soluble. So, y'know. Pop goes the fallen. On top of all of that, they have a tendency to sink like stones. Ever seen a Fallen in a space suit though? 'Cause those bastards _can_ swim." He pointed toward a beached tanker less than a mile north of them. "That's where we're headed by the way." Without much further ado, he pulled his sparrow and launched off toward it.

The sparrows did fine over the water, but Nicole knew that. She followed him closely, keeping her sparrow in a lower gear so he stayed ahead. His was still the sparrow that the vanguard equipped all newborns. Her's was much nicer, one she had won herself in the last SRL tournament. It had been years ago, but the blue accents and purple black lights made this sparrow her favorite.

He got off on the shore a bit aways from the ship itself, motioning for her to get off too. "We should walk from here. You'll see why when we get there."

They walked for a few minutes before Rest started that babbling thing again. Nicole was almost annoyed by it, but she actually made an effort to pay attention this time. Simply because she was trying to make him trust her. To be honest, she wasn't actually sure how accountable for all that talking she was supposed to be. How much was she supposed to remember? Should she respond or did he just talk to fill silence?

"I met this fallen guy out here, I call him Harpoon Guy, 'cause when I met him he had a harpoon gun that he tried to spear me with. Sucker was the guy who I saw swimming. He scared me 'cause I thought, oh man, Fallen _can_ swim, but no, this guy he had a special suit on and this nasty portable harpoon gun. Caught him drilling into a ship. I opened a hatch from the inside, fought against the current to get outside and see where I was when I was scavenging once, and I turned my head, and there he was. Just standing on the bottom of the bloody ocean looking at me through a weird helmet. Of course he immediately tried to kill me. My weapons can't even scratch his armor so I fled back inside the tanker I was exploring and he tried to follow me in. Thankfully he was too big for that little hatch and I got away from him. But he still hangs around here, and I see him occasionally spying on me from a distance. If I get too close to that big old ketch crashed in the east he comes after me, but I think he's found some kind of weird joy in this cat and mouse game we play, because sometimes I think he just wants to scare me. Like he'll pop up real close to me sometimes and then just disappear like 'eeeehheeeheee, i scared the little sha- shite.'" He laughed at his own impression.

"How big is pretty big? What house was he from?" her ghost asked for her.

Rest looked back at them, looking a little surprised. "Oh, you were listening. Eh, I would say he was decent sized. Bigger than your average captain, anyway. And I don't really think he's part of any house. I think he just lives out here. I got this theory that his house was destroyed in one conflict or another and he's the last one alive and he just kind of hangs out by himself."

Whatever she was going to ask next was forgotten in an instant. They passed under something she couldn't see, but she felt it, like an electrical discharge across her skin, under her armor. She shuddered and turned around to look behind her at the way they had come. It was a well trodden path they were following, but Nicole couldn't see what had tripped her off.

The warlock chuckled and she turned again to look at him. She tilted her head in utter confusion, but the warlock was already formulating an answer for her. He picked up a worn beach stone from the sand beside the path, tossing it up in his hand before chucking it past her. It hit a barrier, bouncing off with an electric thump. The barrier itself shimmered honeycomb patterns of light out from the point of impact, up until it was lost in the morning sunlight.

"You have a forcefield? Where did you get the tech?"

"I found it, fixed it up. Put it here to protect myself from- well, from Harpoon Guy." He shrugged, nonchalantly as if this kind of technology wasn't one of the most sought after relics.

"You realize that you could sell that generator for soooo much glimmer," her ghost commented, swiveling his eye to look at him.

"Yeah, I know, but it's more valuable to me being used at the moment. I used to do more salvaging, and before the vanguard got on my case, I would spend nights out here too. Having that shield up to at the very least give enemies pause before coming to kill me made me feel safe out here. So I kept it instead of selling it." He waved for her to follow him. "Come on, I want to show some of the stuff I've found."

The ship itself was half sunk in the sediment. She could only guess that half of the ship was completely buried. The bow itself stuck upwards at a slant like a beached behemoth. Rest approached a door that was once on a subdeck but now seemed like the perfect entrance.

Well, it would have been perfect if it wasn't pitch black beyond the rounded door frame. Nicole stopped, catching his arm before he got too far ahead of her. It was so dark it swallowed the morning sunshine, even where it shone off the snow piled around the door.

She swallowed hard. No, this was bad. No dark tunnels, no cramped places where people could vanish in a scream, be ripped from your side even when you held their hand for dear life. No dark tunnels. Not again.

Rest turned back to look at her again, confusion written on his face. She looked at him in time to watch him glance down at where she had grabbed his arm brace like it offended him. She let him go immediately, realizing with some embarrassment that she had been holding on so tight the armor had begun to creak from the strain.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head, taking several steps away from the door. She wasn't going in there, and she wasn't about to watch him disappear in there either. She had seen enough. This was a salvage spot, that much was obvious. He had made that clear that that was all it was and he had done enough to prove it. There was nothing suspicious or wrong with this place. She was satisfied and she was ready to leave.

"Do you just want to- we can go up to the deck. We don't have to go through the ship or anything."

It was like he read her mind and she had never quite been so grateful for that. He glided his way up a path he had obviously taken before, leading her up the outside of the ship. She followed him happily, breathing easy only when they had both hopped over the rail on the top deck.

He pulled off his helmet and glanced over at her. "Not a fan of tight spaces, I'm guessing."

She shook her head. Tight spaces, dark tunnels. It was all the same. She refused to go down there. The warlock shrugged in response, but didn't say anything else. Instead he spread his arms wide as if to demonstrate. Nicole finally looked around for real; not just on the deck, but at the view around them. From this high off the ground, she could see the Ketch in the far distance again. It was a few miles away and could easily be mistaken for a hill if she didn't know what she was looking at. Snow covered everything in a blanket of white, interlaced with black patches of earth and trees. The deck of the ship was covered in a fair share of snow as well.

While she had given the area a look around, the warlock had started brushing the snow off of crates and barrels around the edges of the deck. She came over to him, looking down into a crate full of mechanical parts. Most hunters could hold their own in a talk about mechanics, and Nicole could identify a few of the shapes in the pile, but many of the weirder shaped pieces were beyond her knowledge.

She dug around in the crate while the warlock walked off to another. Some of the pieces in this one crate alone was worth quite a bit of glimmer. She glances around the deck again, counting at least a dozen more crates that she had to guess were similarly filled with salvage.

This would explain why the vanguard was scared for him. This wasn't just him disappearing a few times. This much stuff, that he had apparently accumulated by himself in less than four months? He had to have been spending a lot of time out here. Like, gone for days at a time, consistently. But it was so harmless, really. Hoarding salvage wasn't unheard of. It was a little ridiculous the sheer amount of stuff here, but he _was_ a warlock. They could get a little carried away if left unchecked.

 _Has he ever had a fireteam?_

Her ghost relayed the question, but the warlock didn't react to her. He stood up suddenly from where he had been crouched by a small box, swatting the air like a bug had flown in front of his nose. He looked over at her all of a sudden, irritation mixing with an odd little pained grimace. "What? No, why?"

"You haven't been able to keep one, or just haven't looked?"

"I haven't looked," he snapped, defensive.

She tilted her head in confusion. Why the sudden change in attitude? Was this a sore subject?

"Are you sure you don't want to go down and see the dig? If you help me for a bit, I'll let you take something valuable with you."

She didn't have time to be put off by the thought of tunnels. Something else caught her attention. Rest was standing on the prow of the ship, the shore line behind him, and on it Nicole caught movement of something white and black. She moved close to him, pulling her sniper and aiming down the scope at the camouflaged _thing_ prowling along a ridge less than half a mile from the ship.

It was a Fallen, a giant one at that. Bigger than your average captain. It wore white and black in an obvious attempt at camouflage but was walking in very obvious plain sight, as if it had no fear of being shot down. Dumb beast was going learn to fear guardians.

She lined up her shot, but was stopped from firing by the warlock, grabbing the barrel of the gun and pulling it off target. "Don't shoot. The forcefield will bounce the bullet off. You're more likely to kill one of us than Harpoon Guy down there."

 _Wait. That's the Fallen you were talking about?_

He read the question on her face again and answered before her ghost could relay the message. "Yes, that's him. He's fine. He can't get in here, I doubt he would actually attack if he could. He just like to mess with me for shits and giggles."

"That's a bit strange."

The warlock shrugged, his arms high above his head in a sign of his own frustrated confusion. "I don't know why. He's just weird. He just likes- he just messes with me sometimes. He knows I can't hardly scratch his armor, so he toys with me. But I think as long as I keep his game fun, he won't actually try to kill me or anything."

"Nicole can kill him. Why don't we go hunt him down? It will make salvaging out here easier for you. You said he was the only one?"

"What? No! Don't- I mean, why? He's not doing anything. He's just here."

The warlock looked so uncomfortable at the prospect of a hunt that Nicole backed off the proposal. There was something he didn't like about it, and she was curious to pinpoint the exact reason, but he had respected her wishes about the tunnel, so she would respect him on this.

"Alright, we won't. But one more question about it."

The warlock fidgeted and looked down at his feet. "Yeah, alright, sure."

"Why are you uncomfortable?"

The warlock made a little pained noise, scuffing his feet. "There's no reason to. Kill him, I mean. He's just- It's a waste of time." It was a pitiful response and obviously not the truth, but his face was slowly turning a deep shade of red that Nicole decided that relenting might be a good idea before he caught himself on fire with his own embarrassment.

The thought that he was protecting it did cross her mind briefly, but that didn't really match up with the embarrassment. That would be guilt possibly, or maybe fear. But he was acting like he had just been pants'd in the Tower, not like he was committing treasonous acts two feet from her. So maybe he wanted to kill it when he got more powerful. This was a goal that he had been working toward and her just tromping in and doing it for him would ruin it all for him. That seemed more likely, so she assumed that was it.

She touched his shoulder to get him to look at her. His face was still the color of a beet but he seemed to be cooling off now.

"No worries, Rest. We get it."

He grunted, trying to act tough but it only made him seem a little childish. "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, pick something out and you can have it. Y'know, as thanks for telling the vanguard the truth."

Like that had ever been a question? She sighed and shook her head. He must have been hanging out with the wrong guardians. She hoped he got himself a good fireteam after this. By the Traveler, this kid needed friends.

* * *

 _Afterword: Longer chapter to make up for how short last week's was. Much happened. We introduced Harpoon Guy. He's a dick that likes to mess with people. We'll see him again. Aydin is a child. A brat child. I love him. Nicole is still a badass. She's a very good mentor. I love her too. Harpoon Guy is a troll. He's cool I guess._

 _Special thanks to Forrestfire21, MaybeALittleBroken (which I hope was a good "*dies*". Don't actually know, but thank you anyway), and spacedolphin3 (fantastic name, btw) for the reviews they left. They are always very much appreciated, so thank you guys so very much. Also thank you to everyone you subbed and favorited! I hope you guys are enjoying the story. :D_


	5. Venus Adventures: Start!

5\. _When Nicole Still Thinks Aydin's an Ass._

Nicole was in the process of picking out her cloak for the day, and she would have been enjoying the task if her ghost wasn't flying around the bedroom behind her buzzing loudly. He had been doing that all morning, and Nicole had been trying her damn well hardest to ignore him. It was quickly becoming difficult, however.

He floated up closer to her, stopping just behind her shoulder. She stopped shifting through the fabrics in her closet, waited a beat with bated breath. Then he buzzed extra loud.

She threw the cloak she had been examining forcibly to the ground and spun to glare at him. _Why are you doing that? What do you want?_

He spun his shell in pleasure, but he floated away again nonchalantly. "Oh nothing. I was just thinking…"

Nicole sighed and resisted the urge to dismantle the little orb. _And what are you thinking about so loudly?_

"The warlock…"

She resisted the urge to sigh again. He was going to rant to her about something, and the way he was leading up to it told her that she was not going to like whatever it was. She turned back to her closest and picked the discarded cloak off the ground. _Go on,_ she projected anyway, because she knew that she wasn't going to escape this now that she had finally acknowledged him.

"Don't think I didn't hear your 'this kid needs friends' comment yesterday. Because I did and it set me thinking. Why don't you be his friend?"

She sent an incredulous look over her shoulder at him. _No._ She didn't even entertain the idea for more than a second.

"Oh come on, Nicole! It's been two years since you've had a good, consistent fireteam. You should really consider thinking about forming another. And I know it hurts and I know it's scary but this guy could really use the help."

 _I said no. He's annoying and dumb and he's an asshole and I can barely stand him to begin with. And on top of all that, if we were to miraculously get close, good friends become dead friends and I can't do that again._ She huffed with a finality that should have ended the conversation but her ghost didn't seem to get the hint.

"Just hear me out for a minute-"

 _I said no!_

"Nicole!" he yelled suddenly, shutting off any further complaint from her. He plowed on without giving her a chance to interrupt him again. "Do you remember your first fireteam? They paired up with you because you three were born around the same time and you trained together. But they fought all the time, remember? And Morgan went off and joined a group of titans. Then Stella got so caught up in her first research project that you didn't hear from her anymore."

Nicole sighed and relented. She wasn't going to escape this. _What are you getting at?_

"You spent half of your first year as a guardian by yourself. You didn't have many friends, and you had to work hard to get anywhere. You had to deal with the mistakes you made alone. Then Latvie came along."

Nicole sighed, still annoyed, but at the mention of her old friend it became sad and forlorn. Latvie had been an incredible stormcaller. It was so rare to see someone with her abilities but she was the most chipper and down to earth warlock Nicole had ever known. She remembered vividly the day she had bounced up to her in the Tower and explained that they needed one extra for a full team for a control match.

She played that match with them. Then she stayed and played the whole afternoon bracket even when the group's other hunter would laugh hysterically when he got his hands on heavy, or when the titans kept bickering enough that she laughed so hard she forgot to watch the sniper lanes. Or maybe it was because of those things that she stuck around.

"They were there when you needed friends. They took you under their wings and they taught you how to survive. They forged you into the guardian you are today. They helped you learn. And when the Twilight Gap happened, they were behind you. They had your back. Do you remember what that felt like?"

She did. And by God did she miss it. She missed _them._ She sank down to her knees, for a moment feeling her whole body grow weak. She remember what it was like having them around, having her Davian to flirt with. Latvie and Eric-2, the two warlocks, and of course Leon and Rehen being ridiculous titans, always bickering and punching each other. She laughed out loud, remembering how they would tell her that it was just titan high-fives. Except with a closed fist, to the face. They had been her best friends, her family. And she missed them more than anything in this world.

She snapped back to reality suddenly, wiping the wetness off her cheeks. "I'm so tired of seeing you be alone, Nicole," her ghost said softly, floating a little closer. "I'm not asking you to forget them. I just want you to let yourself heal." He was quiet for a beat and when the huntress didn't immediately reply, he kept going. "And think about it for a minute. The fireteam he was assigned out of training has obviously already disbanded. He's four months, so the vanguard can't force him into a fireteam anymore. And when this assignment is over, he's going to go back to being alone too. Can you imagine, someone as unskilled and untrained as him trying to go up against that big fallen he has out there, all by himself? He trusts you. He likes you. Give him a chance, Nicole. Please."

She sighed and shook her head. But knew the ghost was right. He was only trying to look out for her. And she knew that her friends wouldn't want her to be alone forever. She just wasn't ready to let them go yet. She didn't want to forget them.

 _I'll think about it._

Her ghost buzzed happiness at her and finally allowed her to finish picking her cloak. Her thoughts were heavy now though, and she couldn't find the joy in it that she had a few minutes ago.

* * *

The Tower pavilion was bustling with activity that morning. The vanguard had issued a new set of general missions and bounties, as per the weekly routine, and guardians of every skill level were seeking jobs and missions to occupy the week. She went to the board and pick up her usual slew of patrol bounties, finding one card with her and Rest's names on it.

She picked it off the board, pleased that it would take them to Venus. She picked a patrol bounty for that planet and could get two birds with one flight out.

Her ghost scanned the code on the card, and grew quiet for a moment. "Looks like we have a vex cluster. They have a project of some kind out by Campus 9, Ishtar Sink region. Vanguard wants us to clear out the whole area of vex and destroy what they're working on."

 _Sounds easy enough. Maybe I can teach the warlock to properly snipe. Make sure to pack an extra sniper and plenty of synths._

Her ghost buzzed happily and she felt her face heat up a little. She was taking his advice, but he didn't have to be so damn happy about it.

 _Where is he anyway?_

"Last ping- and by that I mean annoying burst of static- was about fifteen minutes ago and they were down in the communication switchboard again."

The door was ajar like the last time she had found him down here but this time he wasn't alone. The titan that had started this whole mess was there, too, and it didn't look like he should have been. Nicole stopped in her tracks in the doorway, coming in just in time to watch the titan lift the warlock off the ground by the front of his chest piece and slam him into a wall beside the switchboard.

"Who are you contacting in the Reef?" The titan bellowed, shaking the smaller guardian roughly.

"That's classified information, you great ape. I couldn't tell you if I wanted to. Not that I would want to," the warlock spat back, kicking out uselessly. "Now let me go!"

"I'm tired of all your little lies and tricks. I want the truth, and I'm going to get it. I know what I saw."

"You saw what you wanted to. You were just looking for something to take me down on. You were mad I outsmarted you. Well it wasn't hard, you oaf. You weren't even a challenge. It wasn't even fun. You're just a big, violent, clumsy idiot that can't do anything right! It's hardly my fault no one wants you on their prestigious little fireteams." If any more insults was planning to come out, it was cut off by the titan's fist slamming into the wall beside the warlock's head.

Nicole had seen quite enough of this. She clapped her hands together to make a loud noise, drawing both of their attentions to her. Her ghost materialized at her shoulder. "Shouldn't you be doing something else besides picking on people smaller than you?"

The exo glared at them both, red optics darting between her own glare and her ghost. "None of your business, hunter. Buzz off."

She wondered if he didn't recognize her. He had turned toward her a little, holding the warlock off the ground with one arm, the other waving her off.

"Actually, that warlock is our friend so it is our business, thank you very much."

'Friend' was not the word Nicole would have used, but she supposed the duel looks of shock she received were almost worth it. The titan shuttered his optics a few times in confusion, then he suddenly let Rest go. The warlock plopped to the ground without anything holding him up anymore, watching the rest of the room with cautious confusion.

The titan walked out without another word, brushing his shoulder roughly into her's, nearly knocking her over as he left. Nicole glared over her shoulder at him as the door swung back to it's ajar position again. She came over to the warlock and offered him a hand up. In that moment, he seemed entirely too shocked to be existing, so to help the awkward silence and the way he was just _staring_ at her, she fluffed his collar where it had been crumpled in the titan's fist, and brushed off his front. When he still wasn't responding, she touched his shoulder, tapping it lightly to bring him back.

He shook his head, finally shaking off the thoughts that had been trapping him. "Er, thanks. For that." His face turned beet red again and he looked down at his feet when she stepped away from him.

She shrugged in response, motioning toward the switchboard.

He answered her before her ghost could relay the question. "Yeah, I was just finishing when Tarios came in."

Ah! That was his name. She couldn't remember off the top of her head. She motioned for them to go, and he nodded quietly. He looked a little shaken, but she supposed she didn't exactly blame him. It wasn't everyday a huge exo titan threatened your life.

"What did he want, anyway?" her ghost asked as they left the little room.

Rest turned and locked the door, shrugging his shoulders. She caught the pensive little pout he tried to hide with his back turned. "I don't know. He's mad 'cause I would- I would play my game, like I did to you the other day except- except y'know, as often as possible. I guess I- There was a few other things I pull on him." He paused for a moment, then turned toward her again. They started walking toward their ships together, the warlock still pouting. After a long pause that felt incredibly bated, he finally started talking again. "He said I- I ruined his life."

It was such a heavy statement it made Nicole pause. She glanced at him, stopping him from walking any further with a light touch.

"It was his fault for fighting with you in the pavilion," her ghost said softly, his tone mimicking the sympathy on Nicole's face.

"Yeah, but- but- but…" he trailed off, his stutter finally getting the best of him. He was too worked up and Nicole couldn't help honestly feeling bad for him. The warlock sighed heavily. "He- he wants to prove that he was- was right. That I was a- a- He said I- I ruined his repu- repu- _Dammit!"_ He yelled suddenly, stomping his foot down.

She smiled gently and tapped his shoulder. She, out of everyone in the Tower, would know what it was like when your own voice betrayed you. She put her a finger to her lips and he nodded. She had wondered before if his stops and occasional restarts was just weird warlock-ness, but now she wondered if he had a stutter. Curiously, she remembered him speaking perfectly smooth during those long rants. But he was pretty worked up right now, she decided. It could be that. Or she could have finally found one of the tells she'd been looking for.

"You can explain once you've calmed down. Our mission is on Venus, so you can have the whole flight out to collect yourself." Her ghost said softly to him. She handed him the mission card so his own ghost could scan it and give him the parameters.

He took it without another word and stalked off to his own ship, his face still as red as a beet. She watched him walk away, something between an amused little smile on her face, and still the sympathetic little crimp in her forehead. She kind of felt bad for him. But she couldn't help but find the stuttering, red-faced embarrassment to be a little cute.

Her ghost buzzed more happiness at her. "I heard that."

 _Oh shut up. I'm just trying to be more friendly._

"Oh yes, more friendly. You're doing very well, Nicole. Thank you." He said the last bit very seriously, and Nicole could the feel the warmth behind his words swell in her own chest. She was trying. She was going to see where this whole thing took her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be his 'friend'. At the very least she could help train him a little. Make him worthy of a better fireteam. That way, if something _were_ to happen to him, then she wouldn't be responsible again.

* * *

The Ishtar Sink was experiencing a muggy day in the rainy season. She left the cockpit of her ship without a helmet to have a chance to smell the sweet jungle air before the warlock showed up. Venus had always been her favorite planet. Her personal interest in Vex lore drove her to their sites. The green fauna and diverse wildlife intrigued her. She could gaze at the fluorescent blue volcano slopes all day long, feel the gentle rain on her face. The shallow caves lit by crystal light and twisting open venues of old academies and vex structures begged for her to explore them.

Nicole got to enjoy the warm day for only a little while before the warlock showed up. He seemed significantly more put together than when he had left the Tower, nearly the moment his boots touched the wet ground, he had launched into a rant about how creepy he thought the whole concept of the Vex existence was. The stutter was gone now, and Nicole was still unsure as to what it meant. She decided to put it away as something to look for in the future.

She supposed, in hindsight, that was one of the most irritating things about him. Not his blatant disregard of authority, or his long rants that seemed to be about nearly nothing at all. But the fact that she couldn't find any honest tells about him. That was what she relied on. It was how she remained unattached for two whole years. She learned to read people like books, she knew what they feeling before they were even aware they were feeling it, and then she manipulated them to her own ends. It made her feel safe, being able to predict people. It made everything easier.

But this damn warlock either had ridiculous control over his emotions (something that she had only seen with someone like Ikora, who was similarly difficult to read), or there was a confusion of the correct emotions somewhere. Like usually stuttering meant nervousness, or maybe lying. But as far as she could tell, the warlock had been telling the truth. He had no reason to lie about the titan. But shouldn't he have been nervous when he had initially been in trouble with the vanguard? She ran over the conversation in her head, but he had not even done the stop-start thing he did when he spoke normally. And that was another thing. His normal speech patterns had, in hindsight, the beginnings of, or maybe him trying to cover, a stutter.

He confused her. And that alone was the simultaneous reason behind her hesitation toward him, and her willingness to try. She didn't like what she couldn't understand. But he gave her the challenge she had been missing.

"Venus to hunter, come in hunter."

She blinked, stopped walking, and looked up at where he was waving his hands in front of her. _What?_ Had she blanked out? She must have. His ranting sort of just washed over her.

"Hey, she's alive. Thought you had went back to orbit without me. Or your body. What were you thinking about?"

She shook her head. He didn't need to know she was thinking about him. That would be too weird.

"Aww, come on! You can tell me," he wheedled, poking her shoulder a few times.

She swatted his hands away, giving him a short lackluster glare. He laughed but kept trying to poke her regardless. It dissolved into a short game, one that Nicole would hope her ghost was eventually going to verbally break up. When he didn't come to her rescue, she poked the warlock back. Well, it more like she punched his shoulder to stagger him backwards, but he still laughed despite how rough she was.

Traveler, he was annoying. She didn't come here to play a poking game.

"Tell me, tell me, tell me!" He was beside her again in an instant, that damn whine in his voice again. He was like a child!

"She was concerned about the titan earlier. Why was he trying to… well, do whatever he was trying to do?" Her ghost finally came to her rescue, feeling her ire and her discomfort at being the warlock's sole point of attention. She turned to look at his face just time to see that stupid childish smile flicker in discomfort. _Hah! Serves you right, you annoying git._

"Ahh, pssh. That wasn't what you were thinking about. Idle curiosity doesn't explain how annoyed you looked. Besides, why think so hard about a big stupid titan?" He tried to deflect, but it was weak. "He's just mad I hurt his chances of getting into a good fireteam. He had his sights set on this one g-group that-" he paused and chew on his lip for a second, looking down at the ground they were walking across. He'd attempted to be light hearted but that stutter came back nearly instantly. He was serious for a beat, hard contemplation finally wiping that childish smile away. He looked back up at her a moment later, this odd little smirk on his face. Something between vindictive ire and amusement. "So, Tarios is kind of a weird guy sometimes. Like he alternates between being this really stoic asshole, and this huge cuddly teddy bear. And yes, I did just describe him a huge teddy bear. He gets all touchy-feeling sometimes." He wiggled his fingers at her for emphasis. "Kind of strange, but hey. I'm personally not into exos, so I avoided him during those touchy-feely phases he went through. But around the time he started blowing me up with rocket launchers- for fun, I swear, he does it on purpose." He paused again to gift her with a dark laugh that was hardly in good humor. "I may have started a rumor that he wore pink thongs and then left them on the doors of people he was trying to court. And to make the whole thing. I may have bought a pack of pink thongs and put them on the doors of the fireteam he was trying to join."

They walked in silence after that for a long moment. Nicole just wanted to digest that story for a few minutes. Tarios-7 was not a small guy. He's a was a damn exo titan, for Traveler's sake. He was well taller than her and Rest. Not to mention wider. And the image of him wearing a stringy pink thong was… definitely odd. But more over, the warlock had not _accidentally_ hurt his chances with all the stunts he pulled. He had done that on purpose. As in, it had been a final goal. He wasn't even remorseful about it.

She looked at him again, seeing him a little differently than she had a few minutes ago. _So, we add asshole to the list. Good to know._ Now she knew for a fact that after this assignment was over, Nicole wanted nothing to do with him.

"What," he commented shortly, that vindictive little glint in his eyes. Just like when he had met her in the Tower after that wild goose chase. He was watching her for the sole reason of seeing her react to him. It disgusted her. "You got nothing to say?"

No, she really didn't. She shook her head, disgusted. They were clear of the outpost, and the thick jungle that hid it from Fallen scouts. With the path clear to use her sparrow, she summoned it and launched off, sparing him no time or hope of keeping up.

* * *

 _Afterword: This was supposed to be longer, but the Venus Adventure turned out to be a brat child that refuses to cooperate. So while I wrangle this beastie, I hope you enjoyed this chapter where nothing really happened. Except Tarios. Tarios is starting to happen._

 _Special thanks to Phantomslayer230 and Spacedolphin3 for the reviews. You guys are awesome, thank you so much!_


	6. Venus Adventures: Through the Jungle

6\. _Where Aydin is Full of some Surprises._

Nicole made it a singular goal to ignore the warlock as much as she could. He seemed completely unperturbed by her sudden hostility toward him. In fact, he seemed quite happy about it. Campus 9 was, for the most part deserted. They would run across the occasional pair of hobgoblins, sitting high on the rocky cliffs or atop the taller vex structures. Nicole would dispatch them with little trouble, realizing they were outposts and scouts. Which meant the vex knew they were coming.

The warlock didn't do much to help. He babbled on and on as they navigated the uneven terrain on foot. His topics ranged so widely and jumped without a breath of notice that Nicole stopped attempting to pay attention. It quickly became a background noise to add to the distant sound of wildlife and buzz of vex machinery.

Nicole found his entire presence just slightly revolting. That he would start a rumor, and purposefully ruin the titan's chances of getting into a good fireteam, all because his feelings got a little hurt. She couldn't imagine someone being so self-centered like that, and furthermore, she couldn't imagine herself being associated with someone like that.

What if she did something to wrong him on accident? What kind of rumor would he spread about her? She honestly didn't care, she had no reputation to protect, and it didn't bother her what other guardians thought of her. She was loner for a reason. But the mere fact that he would try to hurt her that way. She just couldn't wrap her mind around it.

Her ghost was entirely silent on the matter. He didn't have much to say anymore, really. He knew how she felt now, and his earlier proposal might as well have been burnt to ash. There was no way she would entertain the idea of him as her friend now.

Rest babbled on until Nicole finally shut him up. They had gotten fairly far into vex territory and the terrain around them became more cut and organized, Nicole started to get more on edge. Especially with the warlock talking so much he was bound to give away their position. She whipped around at one point and smacked him across the chest plate. It wasn't particularly, but it was enough to stagger him and finally silence him.

She could practically feel the glare he directed at her but it was lost beneath his helmet. She made a motion for quiet, then for him to follow more closely.

"What? You don't like gorillas?" It was such an obnoxious question that Nicole rolled her eyes at him. But his voice was lower now, so she let it go.

She could feel them getting closer to the center of the vex directive here. The buzzing that had followed them all through the ruins had gotten steadily louder. The path they had been following ended very suddenly. The path itself was fairly well trodden, but the stone wall that had cropped up across the massive doorway seemed to been placed here on a whim. Nicole walked right up to it, putting her hand flat across the smooth surface. The stone was warm; unnaturally so beneath her gloved palm. _It must have been pulled from some other location or time to keep us out._ The humming was so strong here she could feel it reverberating through the stone.

"So now what do we do?" The warlock asked from the bottom of the steps.

Nicole didn't acknowledge his question directly. She took a few steps away from the stone wall to look up at the structures high above their heads. She traced a potential path up the structure with her eyes, every couple of moments taking a step down and away until she came to stand beside the oddly silent warlock.

She looked at him a moment later, practically feeling his exasperation. "You've got to be kidding me," he deadpanned.

She tilted her head in acted confusion, glad that her helmet hid the wicked little smile that was on her face.

"I know _that all_ ," he gestured wildly to the ruins above them, "seems fun to little miss hoppity hop, but I'm a warlock and I don't hoppity hop, okay."

She shrugged and walked away from him, lining up with the first set of rocks she needed to climb. If he was too chickenshit to try then she would see him when she finished. Might actually give her some peace and quiet.

He continued to yell up at her from the ground for a solid ten minutes, to which Nicole completely ignored. She had to focus on the climbing, afterall. She noticed he'd gone quiet after a while but only stopped to look for him once she had gotten to a relatively flat bit of cliff she could rest on. She wasn't entirely surprised to see him completely missing from sight. She couldn't bring herself to be all that concerned. She tried to squash the irritation. While yes, she was entirely prepared to do this alone, she didn't exactly want to. Dumb warlock, made her do all the work.

She rested for a few moments then continued on. She was over the top fairly quickly, and from there just leapt down, using her jumps to soften her landing. She hardly waited for her boots to touch the ground before she was jogging up the trail again.

"You think it's really wise to just leave him behind?"

 _Why not? He'll be fine, we cleared the area of vex._

"I'm actually concerned about you Nicole. We don't really know what we're walking into."

 _This will be easier without having to babysit him anyway._

She slowed to a walk as she got closer to the top, slinking down into a half crouch as the valley below came into sight. The air was practically singing, the humming so strong she could almost feel it. She didn't really look at the valley before something on the path just below her caught her attention with its movement.

She paused, nearly dropped to the ground, but stopped. There, using a large boulder as cover, torso practically laid out across the top, and spyglass out and focused on the distant vex structures, the warlock had beat her here.

… _how…_

"How did you get over here before us?" Her ghost to her rescue, but she could feel his confusion as well, just as strong as hers.

The warlock looked over his shoulder at her, helmet blocking whatever expression he had. She couldn't tell in that moment. He seemed a bit blank altogether. "I went around," he replied flatly.

 _He went… around…?_ She felt really, really stupid in that moment. Her first instinct had been to go up. She hadn't even checked to see if there was a faster alternate route. He didn't seem inclined to heckle her about it, though, and for that she was relieved. Maybe he had an ounce of tact afterall.

He offered her the spyglass, and she approached and took it from him, looking out across the valley. The first and most obvious feature that took Nicole's attention was the absolutely _massive_ vex time gate in the very far reaches of the valley, a good twenty miles in the distance. Between that and their side of the valley was a patch of jungle so thick it would give even a seasoned hunter like herself a moment of pause. The term 'rat's nest' came to mind..

"We have about three or four hours of daylight left," the warlock said after a lengthy pause. "What should we do?"

She looked at him in a flash of surprise. She wasn't expecting him to defer to her so openly like that. But in hindsight, she supposed that he was the younger one, and thus inexperienced. She looked down the spyglass again a moment later. The jungle only ended at the mountains that protected the valley because of the sheer rocky cliffs. They could try to skirt around the valley but if the warlock didn't want to climb the rock behind them there was no way she would manage to drag him across all those cliffs. On top of that, they would be exposed and out in the open for enemy fire. But the jungle was dark and dense and covered most of the twenty mile trek. They might be able to shave off some of the time by using their sparrows if they found any possible clearings, but both journeys seemed long. The jungle felt a better bet to Nicole. Vex could easily hide themselves in the thick of it, but so could a pair of guardians.

Her ghost relayed their options to him. As expected, he regarded the idea of traversing the cliff walls with disgust. She supposed she didn't quite blame him. As a hunter, if she slipped she could just recover if she had enough light to bounce herself up. But a warlock was so floofy that every misstep would be an unnecessary death for him.

"So we brave the jungle then." He seemed nearly as disgusted by that then the cliffs, but the dense jungle was what he ultimately chose.

Nicole would have chosen the jungle too, if she was honest. It seemed obvious. Then again, 'up' had seemed pretty obvious to her on the other side of the wall, and the warlock had proven her wrong, surprisingly. He didn't have anything to offer up, however, so she assumed his moment of intelligence had been short lived.

He was right about the daylight situation. Nicole wasn't sure how she felt about traversing the jungle at night. It would be dark beneath the canopy during the day so it would be pitch black at night. She hesitated on that thought for a moment. It wasn't that she was _afraid_ of the dark, persay. She just… really, really hated it.

But she did have a sunsinger with her. She might as well put him to use. And if he proved useless again, she always carried a lantern with her. Not to mention both ghosts could generate light as well. Yeah, she told herself, it would be fine.

* * *

The jungle started very abruptly and it was as thick as it looked from atop the mountain they had come down from. They rode down the slope on their sparrows and were able to shave off some of the journey in very little time. But the jungle itself would be on foot, and that was slow going for the first few hours. Mostly due to the warlock.

 _At least he's not talking anymore._ Although she suspected he was too focused on keeping up with her to be able to keep a running dialogue with himself again. Nicole had set a brutal pace through the trees, finding a groove and rhythm she could follow and flowing over the ground like a cat on the prowl.

The warlock on the other hand was like a cabal crashing through the underbrush behind her. They had made decent progress by the time it got too dark to keep going. Night had crept up on them fairly quickly once the sun went down. The painted oranges and yellows of the sulfur sunset faded quickly and the jungle was almost darker than she had imagined it would be.

At one point she slipped on a mossy vine and nearly fell, and that was when she realized just _how_ dark it had gotten. She waited for the warlock to catch up, trying to keep her nerves under control. She hated night ops. Loved Venus, it was her favorite, but she could do without the inky dark jungle floor, thank you very much. Once the warlock was beside her, seemingly doing much better in the dark then he did when the sun was still up, Nicole pulled the phosphorus lamp from her inventory, shaking the powders inside to push the chemiluminescent to life. It bathed both of their helmeted faces in the sickly green light.

Nicole had taken to wearing light colors that day. The warlock, however, seemed to really enjoy blacks. As in, the solid kind that seemed to swallow light into any cloth he was wearing. Nicole only paid it any mind now because she could only really see the small metal part across his chest and his helmet even in the lamp light. She found herself reaching for him just in case.

Then Verz appeared at his shoulder, briefly blinding her and illuminating the whole area with their light. Nicole shielded her eyes but the warlock was already walking off, clumsily picking his way forward, where the humming was originating from. She hooked the lantern to her belt and followed.

After a while she watched, with no small amount of amusement, the warlock get more and more unsteady until finally the uneven jungle floor finally got the best of him. He tripped on something and fell ass over kettle with a short yell of surprise. Verz's light winked out and Nicole lost him in the dark until she got a little closer. She caught the flash of the top of his helmet and that was the only thing that stopped her from accidentally kicking him. She stood over him, trying not to laugh as he untangled himself from the bush he had landed in.

"I know you're laughing, okay," he snapped, sounding genuinely irritated for the first time today.

She made a small breathy noise loud enough that he could hear, just so that he would know that she _was_ in fact laughing at him. He didn't seem pleased by it, making the noise back mockingly. He stood again, Nicole taking a step back when she realized she was standing practically on top of him (she couldn't lose him in the dark, why oh why did he have to wear black today?)

He fluffed his collar indignantly and began to walk off again, this time leading without Verz's light to guide them. Nicole had taken to following only because she wanted to keep him in her sights. It made it easier if Verz was out guiding anyway, but now the warlock was spearheading their progress through the dark and it made Nicole uncomfortable. She almost wanted to call on her own ghost to guide them, but that would defeat the purpose of the lamp and would mean that logically, she would have to take point (and she didn't want the warlock walking where she couldn't see him being dragged into the darkness by some monster out of her nightmares). So she walked beside him the best she could. And wouldn't she know it, but he actually seemed to be doing better in the darkness than she was. Of course, he wasn't nearly as graceful as her, but he seemed to be moving easier without the light. She wondered briefly if the stark shadows threw him off? She knew they could for her.

She thought back to her training days with her old fireteam. Davion more specifically. The hunter that taught her how to be, well, a hunter. The first several treks they had taken through jungle terrain, he had blindfolded her so that she learned to navigate with her hands and feet, not with her eyes.

" _Feel the jungle,"_ he would say to her. " _Don't just look at it. That'll make her bashful and hide all her secrets. You gotta be one with the trees."_ Then he would usually follow up with his ridiculous talk and a laugh that use to fill her with such a fire.

The memory glanced off of her, but the sting of it still struck her and she staggered. She didn't fall. She never fell. Nicole regained her footing as easy as breathing, following the warlock through the darkness and leaving the warm laughter of her lover behind.

* * *

They made it to the far side of the jungle in the wee hours of the morning. Just like on the ruins side, the jungle ended very abruptly, but this time it was not the mountain slopes that drove the fauna back, but the vex themselves. A very neat waist-high wall surrounded a complex of structures and the massive gate on the far end.

Rest had his spyglass out and was surveying the area. Nicole decided that they should rest before going into that mess, and started clearing out a small space beneath the tangled roots of a partially upended tree. They were a fair distance from the gate still, but the valley sloped down very suddenly into a crater like formation that made it easy to look down at the operation. It reminded Nicole of a nest or a spiderweb, and that imagery was not helped by the veins of glowing vex technology that splayed out from the gate in a semi-circle.

She made a comfortable place to rest for a while, and was already settled onto her makeshift bed when the warlock returned. They didn't say anything to each other, and Nicole rolled over and fell into a light doze easily.

She woke a few hours later, according to her ghost. The warlock was still sitting by the entrance but he had dozed off too against one of the vines. Midday was closing in and Nicole felt sticky without her helmet on to regulate the temperature in her suit. The warlock had not taken off his, and that was probably why. Nicole usually liked the warmth, so it didn't bother her much.

She let the warlock sleep a little longer, taking up the time by sharpening her knives and cleaning her weapons. She had just finished putting her scout rifle back together when she noticed the warlock move. His head came up, he looked at her, then out at the jungle beyond the roots. It was an hour after midday and now was likely the best time to start their assault.

"You good?" her ghost asked him.

"Good as I'm getting," he replied, voice still thick with sleep even beneath the helmet. He stretched his legs out in front of him, rolling his shoulders. "So what's the plan, chief?"

"We take out the gate and its power source." That was all her ghost said at first.

The warlock was quiet for a beat before he clapped his hands together. "Yup, good plan. You do that, I'll stay here and count the bugs."

Both hunter and ghost glared at him. "Okay smartass, we haven't surveyed the field yet. Give us a break."

He rolled his head sideways in a way that gave Nicole the impression he was rolling his eyes. "There's about thirty or forty vex, five of which are minotaurs, two packs of four harpies patrol different sides of the area, one north and the other southwest. One harpy from each party is an Axis and has a shield. Two of the minotaurs are also Axis and guard what I can assume is the power source to the left of the gate. Hobgoblins are on lookout at eight points around the area, on towers. The remaining vex are armed to the teeth but are mostly worker drones. No Axis goblins that I saw."

Nicole blinked at him a few times. _Well, okay then…_ "Any viable paths we can take?" Her ghost asked, riding her shocked curiosity to see the warlock keep going.

"Yes. We could kill everything. But that would take way too long and the chances of us getting overwhelmed and flanked is high. Especially with those minotaurs. We could pick off what we can and go in. Our main issue is going to be the hobgoblins and the minotaurs. Because the towers are placed in a box formation, it would be impossible to hide both of us beneath one without at least three more towers having clear shots at one or both. Furthermore, those hobgoblins are purposefully out in the open like that. We won't be able to take them out quietly.

"I can create a distraction. Draw the attention of everything in the area and you take out those hobgoblins. I'll need help with the minotaurs though, so you'll have to be quick. We'll need to deploy our ghosts on the powersource but everything will be too distracted by us to pay them any mind. I suggest they both go with me, and deploy when I challenge the minotaurs.

"By the time we have to deal with the harpies, hopefully the two Axis minotaurs will be dead. Then it's just clean up from there."

It was a decent plan. She didn't like that he was the distraction again. Why he insisted on making himself useful _that_ way was beyond her. The plan was not particularly clever, and relied heavily on their combined firepower, but Nicole personally had nothing to add or anything to change. They did need something to distract the enemy, even if she didn't agree with it.

The warlock barely waited for her to okay the plan before he picked up, checked his weapons, and was sprinting through the trees. Her ghost phased through her and melded with the warlock's light without a breath of a thought. She was hot on his heels up until the tree line, where she broke off and hopped up into a tangle of vines and branches to get a better vantage point on the eight snipers. The layout of enemies was exactly as the warlock had said they would be, but Nicole was too busy to be surprised. She waited for the first detonation of his grenades before she started firing. She couldn't see him around the pillars but she could practically feel his light from here, pulsing like a second heart beside her own. It bolstered her own arc, and she could feel it itching down her skin in anticipation.

She focused on the hobgoblins. Aim, steady, squeeze, recoil. Four shots and she reloaded, then four more. The scouts had no time to realize they were being picked off until they were down to the last. Once the last metal body toppled down off their perch, Nicole was moving again. She leapt from her vantage point and met the warlock in the ring of burning light he had made himself. His radiance was coming to an end, his wings beginning to gutter and snap by the time Nicole pulled up beside him, rolling through the fire and letting it slip past her armor like water.

She pulled her blade the same moment his fire died out, arc energy snapping at the air between her and the ground. One of the axis minotaurs was a smoking heap of twisted metal already but the warlock had run out of fire before the second one could be taken down. Her blade made quick work of it and the gaggle of goblins that had advanced on their position. Both ghosts were already deployed on the control box beside the gate, but every vex in the area was too focused on the fighting duo just as the warlock had predicted.

The harpies showed up shortly thereafter, and pounded the ground around them in a hailstorm of fire. Rest grabbed the back of her armor as two of them opened up their assault directly above them, yanking her backwards and throwing a literal wall of fire between them and the assaulters. The heat roared in front of her but she was already moving again, ducking down beneath him and slipping through the wall like a phantom. She always kept more than one knife on her and arc crackled around her again as she closed the gap between her and the harpies in a blink. Her knife cut through the shield and gutted its eyes. It took the brunt of her weight but wobbled in the air unsteadily as it died. Nicole was already blinking to the next Axis, abandoning one knife for speed and executing the same leaping gut of the on the other.

The warlock's hasty shield snapped out then but he was focused on the other harpies at that point, turning them into strands of energy and plasma with a fusion rifle. Nicole started the cleanup of the other goblins that were advancing on them.

She was too focused on the task for a moment, tunnel vision making her forget to keep on eye on the novice warlock fighting beside her. She heard him yell and turned to look. He was on the ground, still firing wild and unaimed shots at another minotaur. There was a fizzle of a teleport and Nicole turned in time to duck beneath another minotaur swinging at her.

She rolled away and tried to get in a few shots but her scout rifle didn't have enough punch and the minotaur was too close. She retreated up the hill, wishing she could call for the warlock to do the same. There was another snap of a teleport, not quite a vex sound, but certainly not guardian. She turned and nearly knifed the warlock, but managed to flow the action into another rolling side leap away from heavy fire. They were being driven up the crater wall again, away from the gate. But it seemed the warlock had miscalculated or the vex had called for instant reinforcements but there were at least five minotaurs and they were all Axis, larger armored chassis, bigger guns, and tougher shields.

Both guardians were driven back into the tree line. There was an explosion shortly thereafter, centered near the gate. The humming in the valley suddenly stopped and the gate guttered and went dark. In that same instant, a wall of semi-translucent light shot up before them, knitting itself together like a giant complex puzzle until it met at the top in a dome. The vex on the inside had stopped firing and the guardians' bullets bounced away harmlessly.

 _A barrier?_

Nicole stopped firing a couple seconds before the warlock, pausing in confusion and dread. This couldn't be good. The vex proceeded to ignore them once the barrier was up, turning and marching back down the hill again.

 _Ghost?_ There was a pause where she heard nothing. She felt for his comforting pulse inside of her but all she felt was the odd little feeling of _not there_ when he was not merged with her. _Ghost, where are you?_ Her heart skipped a dreadful beat and she felt her face drained of blood. A tremor shook her and her world nearly collapsed in an instant. _No no, not alone, I can't be alone, alone! I can't be alone again!_ _Where? Where?_

His voice cut through the jumbled of heated dark thoughts that swirled up to swallow her. " _We're fine, Nicole. Both me and Verz. We can't transmat out of here, but we've found a place to hide. The dome is made of some kind of solid force barrier. We can't phase through it. You guys have to take it down."_ His voice was a quiet tinny noise in her head, weak and full of static, but he sounded fine. He sounded unhurt, if a little scared.

She took a few deep breathes, trying to force calm into herself. Her heart was still pounding in her ears and it made the quiet of the post-battle jungle seem to ring. She sank down to the ground, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her. He was alright. He wasn't damaged, he wasn't a broken husk of ancient tech crushed beneath some minotaur. He was alive, just separated.

She could feel him sending calming vibes at her, trying to reassure he was alright. She could catch images of where he was; flashes of dark and light, fauna, wet soil, and mossy rock just behind her eyes. She sighed heavily. She had to get him. She had to break the barrier.

She suddenly remembered the warlock, glancing up at him in a flash of guilt she would never admit to. She was going to have to deal with him freaking out, too. _Fantastic… More babysitter Nicole._

* * *

 _Afterword: Did I mention I planned to take a week off between 5 and 6? I don't think I did. Sorry about that. In my defense I wasn't sure if I was going to or not, but Venus adventures continued to fight with me. It's still kicking, too. Also, y'know, real life has a tendency to slap you in the face when you aren't expecting it. So there will probably an extra week between every five chapters to give me a break and maybe get a chapter ahead (not that I did this time, but hey maybe next time, right?)_

 _So, onto a few things I think should be clarified. Every guardian can manipulate their power a little differently. So Aydin can conjure physical walls of fire. He's also not capable of self-rez coz he tries to avoid dying so much he hasn't really tried. Also, at this point, I doubt he's physically powerful enough anyway. Nicole on the other hand is a seasoned and practiced bladedancer, and can thus pretty easy channel arc energy. She can blink on command but usually uses her hoppity hops because it takes less energy and focus._

 _Also, I decided to do away with the little Aydin-POV-outros because i'm lazy, mostly. But also because I intend to tell his side of this story later in full chapters devoted to just him. So, yay Aydin? But if you look back in the near future, those little bits will probably be gone from the end of chapters._

 _A special thank you to Oozak12 and Orix (Very punny, you) for their reviews. They are much appreciated! Also thank you to everyone who subbed and Favorite'd!_

 _I guess also thanks to Wolf Borne22 for... stuff... :)_


	7. Venus Adventures: Guardians in Hiding

7\. _In which the warlock is a man-child with a plan_

The warlock was completely still beside her, his whole body tense as a drawn bow. Nicole climbed to her feet slowly, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened, and more importantly, what they were going to do next.

She looked away from the warlock and back to the barrier. Translucent white, it glowed just a little brighter when she reached out to touch it, but it didn't hurt her. It felt like ice beneath her glove. Cold and slick and impossibly solid. She frowned beneath her mask. They had to do something. They needed to take it down… They needed heavy artillery. They could get that at their ships. She turned and looked back at the jungle behind them.

That was a long walk back, especially without their sparrows. At least a three day trek. And they had no rations. Well, Nicole had a few, but not enough for three days. She doubted the warlock had any at all. So between the two of them, she had enough for a single meal. Most of her supplies were with the ghost. That included canteens and ammo, food rations, and her sniper. She had traded it out for the rocket launcher after she had finished with the hobgoblins on their watch towers. She still had her scout rifle at least.

Another terrible thought occurred to her then. Without their ghosts, any injury they sustained on the trip back they would just have to deal with. And if they died… She paled at the thought.

She heard the warlock move behind her, and she turned to look at him, remembering that he was there again. He was digging at the ground against the barrier and Nicole resisted the urge to snort. Did he think they could dig underneath it? These kind of barriers sealed over any open air.

She tapped his shoulder and suddenly he was standing and looking directly at her. "Can you sign?"

She shook her head. She didn't talk to enough people to justify learning. And besides, she had her ghost for that sort of thing. She kind of regretted it now, but it was too late to beat herself up over it.

"That's inconvenient," he muttered and was back to messing with something on the ground the next moment.

If this was his version of honestly freaking out, then she could deal with this. He wasn't talking, just digging, from what she could tell. But digging was going to be useless so when she tapped on his shoulder this time, she tugged him a little in the direction they needed to go.

He looked over his shoulder at her and she gestured to the jungle behind them. He didn't acknowledge her right away, instead going back to whatever he was doing, which Nicole realized was _not_ in fact digging. He was trying to free a Vex head that had been severed from the body and was slowly being reclaimed by the jungle trees. It had been there for so long, its plating was nearly completely green with moss.

 _What is he doing…?_ It came out as a clearly exasperated sigh that actually got the warlock's attention.

He swiveled his helmeted head at her and she got the impression he was glaring. "This thing might have useful information on it," he defended, sounding irritated.

They seriously had better things to do than argue with each other. Not that Nicole was really capable of arguing back. So she just walked away. They had a long walk ahead of them, after all.

* * *

The warlock followed her at a distance, insisting on carrying that stupid head with them. Occasionally she would lose him and have to loop back to find him starting to curve back the way they had come. Stupid warlock had no sense of direction. He was far too distracted by whatever was going on in his head to pay attention, and that irritated Nicole probably the most. She wanted to yell at him and tell the exact course of action they were taking so that he would just leave that dead weight _thing_ behind and at least try to keep up with her.

By the fourth time she had to go find him she was ready to give up for the day. The shadows through the trees were starting to get long and gold as the afternoon waned and she couldn't tell how far they had made it, but it didn't seem all that far. She could still hear the barrier in the distance, a humming gentler than the gate, but still like a persistent itch in the back of her head.

Her lamp was with her ghost and she wasn't in the mood to play charades with the warlock to try to tell him they needed light. So she found a shallow cave made by a rock and hanging lichen. It wasn't the most protected place but it would do for the night.

The warlock walked past where she had stopped and would have kept right on going if she hadn't grabbed the back of his armor and drug him back. She pointed to the little cave and pushed him inside. She pressed on his shoulders once they were both in, him having to stoop in the small space. He got the hint after a second and sat down on the moist ground, crossing his legs and still holding that damn head in his lap like a kid with toy.

She wanted to take it away from him just to spite his immature little ass, but decided that it was probably best to just let him keep it. If it was helping to keep him this obedient and quiet, then she could swallow her irritation.

She spent the next several moments trying to tell him that she needed him to set up a camp while she went looking for food. The jungle was filled with Venusian wildlife and she wanted to try and save her rations if she could, just in case they needed them in a pinch.

He still had his helmet on, irritatingly, and she couldn't tell if his blank stare was because he really wasn't paying attention or because Nicole was bad at charades. She ended up handing him a stick and making sparkly hand motions over it, and that was the point when Nicole gave up and left. He was a warlock, for Travellers sake. If he couldn't figure that out then Light help him.

She returned an hour later, kill in hand. Darkness was settling over the jungle again, and Nicole felt blind without even her ghost to keep her calm. She felt exposed out here. She almost walked past the cave in the near darkness. She stopped outside the hanging lichen that created a door, and sighed heavily. There was no light inside, which meant the warlock probably hadn't done anything.

She stomped into the cave, ripping the lichen aside harshly. There was just enough light to see the warlock in the back of the cave look up at her. The vex head he had insisted on dragging with them was in a hundred pieces around him, pieces of it hooked to wires that connected to his helmet. He recognized her then went back to whatever it was he was doing.

She wanted to yell. She wanted to slap him again. Instead she took a calming breath and left the cave again. She returned a while later with enough dead foliage and twigs to hopefully start a fire. If the warlock was going to make her do everything, then fine. He wasn't going to get dinner then.

Everything was wet, of course, and that made fire making difficult at best. Just because they didn't feel the rain so much down beneath the canopy, did not mean the ground was exactly dry. It leaked down the trees and pooled in wide fern leaves. It covered everything in a thick layer of moisture and it was making Nicole's frustration even worse. She spent awhile trying to zap the moisture from the bigger pieces she had brought in, but then even the kindling wouldn't light, no matter how hard she tried to electrocute it. She had done this before, she had done this hundreds of times. Davion had been a gunslinger, but he had still taught her how to use her own light to keep her alive. You didn't need solar to create fire. You just needed energy of any kind. Even void Light wielders could start fires if they were so inclined.

But she was just so frustrated. Frustrated and angry, and scared. She felt empty without her ghost, blind without his guidance, exposed without his light near hers. They were nearly stranded out here in the total darkness, and if something happened to her, that would be it. There would be no one to save her. No one was coming for her this time. If she got lost in the dark… she wouldn't be coming out this time.

She threw the stick against the wall, curling up her knees and hiding her face. She wanted to go home. She wanted all of this to be over. She wanted her ghost back.

There was a soft whooshing noise that caught her attention. She looked up, smelling something burning. It wasn't the ozone smell of her arc this time, but a warm wood burning smell. One of the logs she had brought in was burning gently, small flames flickering over the top surface. The warlock's hand was still outstretched over it when she looked. He retreated back to the vex head careful of the spool of wires still connected to his head. He looked like he was a part of some bizarre experiment and it was kind of weird. She wanted to know what he was hoping to achieve but at the same time, she really didn't want to know.

"If you wanted a fire, you could've just said something."

Aaaand that momentary gratitude she had for the light was gone in a flash. Dumb, stupid, selfish warlock. She gave him a look, trying to bottle all her frustration up in a single glare.

She still couldn't see his face but his shoulders did a little twitch. "That was a poor choice of words," he muttered, then returned his focus to the head again.

Again, Nicole had the distinct urge to slap him. But she figured that if he could make the fire then he could probably take it away again and she was too frustrated to make her own. So she let him go. Swallowing her anger was not something new to her, she just hated how often she had to do it for this idiot.

She built a proper fire after that, using the task to help keep herself calm. The busy work was a nice change, and it kept the doom and gloom hanging at her shoulder at bay for while. She cleaned the little Venusian bird, skinning the colorful scales and cutting it in half down the spine so it would fit on two stakes.

Night had fully set in by the time they were done cooking and Nicole was so hungry she ate the first one without even waiting for it to cool. The warlock was focused on his stupid head still. She waited a little while before deciding he didn't want it and she ate the second half too.

Suddenly he ripped the cables off his helmet and took the thing off for the first time in nearly two days. She was still working on the second half when he seemingly came back to land of the living. He looked at the fire, then her, then the half eaten bird in her hand.

"Any left?"

She couldn't help the little smirk. She made a point of taking a slow bite. He hardly helped her set up camp, didn't help her get any food for them, he wasn't doing anything but playing with a stupid dead vex head. He wasn't helping them get their ghosts back; in fact, he was slowing them down with that stupid thing. He had been nothing but a pain in her ass this whole time. She was going to enjoy her bird and if he wanted food, he could go out and find it himself.

He glared at her for a second then put his helmet back on. It looked like he was going to go pout in his corner of the cave, gathering up the mess he had created and curling up in his corner. Nicole was happy he wasn't planning to annoy her, even if she feel just a _little_ bad about denying him dinner. He would be fine. She would help him find some fruit in the morning, she decided. She finished her food and smothered some of the fire so that nothing was left but small flames.

She curled in her own corner and tried to get some rest.

* * *

She wasn't sure when she fell asleep, but something woke her up. Her first instinct was to request a status report from her ghost, but was met with only that aching silence. She glanced around the small cave. The fire was nothing but a few smoldering embers, darkness still clung to the walls even as the pre-dawn grey began to chase it away. The warlock was gone.

She leapt up and bolted from the cave. The jungle was far too quiet for this time in the morning. There was no rustling in the underbrush, no birdsong in the trees. Which meant something was going down nearby.

Then she heard it. An angry minotaur sound in the near distance, but no answering gunfire or explosions. She was moving without thinking. That stupid, idiot warlock! Why had he left the cave? Why did he go out without her? If he died out here, she was going to be alone again. She would have to return to the Tower and tell the vanguard by herself that she had lost another guardian. That was even if she managed to get the ghosts back by herself.

She couldn't be left alone again. Even if he was annoying and selfish and so, so stupid, she refused to let him die out here. She refused to have more blood on her hands.

The minotaur was making all kinds of ruckus in a small clearing between tree trunks. It stomped around loudly, crushing ferns and bushes at it went. It spun when she came crashing out of the trees and immediately started firing on her. Nicole was far too quick for it, blinking out the way of its shots. She wove between the trees, taking shots at it every time it lost track of her. She whittled down the shield it had and eventually blew the head off.

Angry and confused, the giant crashed through the trees in the direction of her last known location, running headlong into a tree with enough force it fell over and didn't move again. Nicole finally let herself be still for a moment, holding her breath in case the minotaur did stand back up again. When it didn't, she let her cloak fade and she came back into the visible spectrum.

Then she was moving again, searching the bushes and trees for the warlock, the whole time a roaring mantra in her head. She was alone, she had failed him. He was dead somewhere and she would never find him and he would be claimed by the jungle and Nicole would have let another guardian die. She didn't have to look for very long. He came to her, calling out as he climbed down from the tree he had been hiding in. She leapt at him, never so happy to see his idiotic little mug.

She practically tackled him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a hug. He staggered backwards with her sudden weight, but didn't fall over.

"Uh…?" He didn't seem sure what to do with his hands for a moment, but eventually one came to rest on the small of her back and the other on her shoulder. He pushed her away after a second, looking down at her. "Are you okay?"

 _I thought I was going to lose you! I thought you were dead! I thought I was alone!_

"Whoa, whoa hey, calm down lass, it's alright. I'm alright, you aren't alone."

She looked up at him in surprise, before realizing that she had been so caught up in her own head, she had actually mouthed the words. That realization made her feel even worse. She wanted to talk, every fiber of her being wanted to, but she was incapable of doing even that! She let her face drop into her hands. This was too stressful. She just wanted to go home. She was used to being in control. She was used to being the mentor, the guide. She was never afraid, she was never in any trouble herself. She forgot how terrifying it was to be in risk of dying. In true risk of never making it out.

The warlock led her to a rock she could sit on for a moment, crouching down in front of her and taking off his helmet. She couldn't even remember where her helmet was and for a moment she didn't care. She felt like she was dying. Something inside of her was screaming and she couldn't breathe.

There was a gentle touch on her cheek, warm and soft against her skin. She looked up to see the warlock very close to her. "Hey, listen to me." His voice was low and deep and Nicole was frozen in his gaze. "Everything is going to be okay," he told her gently. "We will get through this. We will survive. We will get our ghosts back."

She was enraptured, completely distracted. He said it all with such finality, such charismatic confidence that she couldn't help but believe him. He was so close to her now, their foreheads were practically touching, and Nicole felt like she should have been embarrassed by his gall. But all she could think about for a second was that his eyes were the most vibrant shade of green she had ever seen.

"Okay?" She nodded and he moved away. The spell was broken and she felt her face heat up. If he noticed he didn't say anything about it. "That barrier needs stabilizing conduits to keep it running, and those conduits need open air to stay cool. Which means they have to be outside the dome." He was standing again, pointing back toward the direction of the barrier. "I managed to pull the location of several off that vex head last night."

And Nicole was back to feeling a little stupid. Her immediate solution had been to get the heavy artillery. Aydin was thinking about a more technical approach. Of course, his plan did not require a three or four day hike through enemy territory. And this was why she was a hunter, and he was a warlock. It wasn't like she was incapable of coming up with intelligent plans. She just usually came to the conclusion that the simplest solutions were often the easiest.

He turned back to look at her and Nicole found herself frozen in his gaze again. His smile was gentle when he offered it to her, reassuring and confident. His eyes were warm and kind and Nicole felt it wash over her like a soothing breeze. She wasn't sure how he was doing that, but Nicole was so desperate for the comfort, for someone else to take responsibility and lead them, that she couldn't bring herself to care. As long as he kept smiling at her like that.

"In the meantime," he said, his voice breaking her trance. "I've found a place we can get breakfast and some fresh water. Maybe wash up a bit before we carry on." He stepped toward her and outstretched his hand. "You okay now?"

She nodded and took his hand, letting him lead her for once.

* * *

 _Afterword: I'm so sorry this chapter is short. I spent most of the week moving and not really writing. I didn't get nearly as far with this chapter as I wanted but I ran out of time and Fallout is calling my name. Haven't had a chance to play the new DLC and I'm itching to try it._

 _So a few things I forgot to mention last time that has been bugging me and I'm sure may bug any space nerd like me. Venusian days are about 166 earth days. Obviously if I wanted to play with Nicole's fear of the dark I had to pretend that wasn't a thing. Also, in the actual game, Venus has a day/night cycle that is fairly similar to Earth's day/night cycle. So I assumed that when the Traveler terraformed things, he sped up Venus's spin, which would change a lot of other things but I'm not going to get into any more science nerd bullshit because that isn't what y'all are here for. I'd also like to point out that Venus has no moons, so any night time light is ambient ground light being reflected off the clouds._

 _Anyway. A special thanks to F1REAT4R, spacedolphin3, and oozak12 for their reviews. They are very much appreciated guys! Thank you to everyone who faved and subbed, I hope you guys are enjoying the story._


	8. Venus Adventures: The Last

8\. In Which they Get the Hell out of Dodge

He lead her through the early morning jungle, first back to the cave they had made camp the night before so they could gather their belongings. The warlock stared at the dismantled vex head for a few minutes before he shrugged and left it there. Nicole figured he had no more use for it. She kind of felt bad about thinking him a child when he had been carrying that thing around. At the same time, he could have said something. He could have told her what he was planning.

As he lead her back through the forest, Nicole realized that he really had no reason to talk to her either. She had been quite awful to him the previous day, and he had turned around and comforted her in a moment of weakness.

She wasn't sure what to think of him anymore. The terrible story he had told her, and the obnoxious talkative childishness that he had acted with since she had met him conflicted so heavily with the quietly intelligent purpose he carried himself with now. Maybe the difference was that he had a mission that would challenge him. He was choosing not to rely on her to save them, like so many other young guardians did. They often got paired with a higher ranked guardian and the moment things turned sour, they would look to her to save them. But Aydin wasn't and she respected him for that. Even if he was an asshole, immature, and dumb.

He had found a freshwater spring sometime in the night. How he had spotted thing in the pitch darkness was beyond her, but the little cave he lead her to had a warm pool of bubbling water. It leaked down the rock walls and collected in natural troughs around the walls. Her helmet did a quick chemical analysis and found that it was as fresh as Venus had to offer naturally.

She gratefully drank. The warlock was behind her messing with his armor, but Nicole was so happy to have something besides the recycled water her armor gave her that for a moment she couldn't care less.

She washed her face of the sweat and grime clinging to her skin. The pool in the center was heated by volcanic veins but the water leaking the walls was from the outside and was pleasantly cool. She enjoyed the short wash, wetting her hair and neck to alleviate the humid heat that was already beginning to sweep through the jungle now that sun was up.

Nicole heard the warlock hiss and finally looked over at him. He obviously didn't mean to make the noise, and whatever he was doing, he was trying to be discrete about it. When she looked, their eyes met. He gave her a small smile, almost apologetic then turned back to the warm pool and played with water uselessly. Which Nicole found even stranger considering he hadn't even bothered to remove his gloves.

It looked like he was just wasting time until she looked away, but now Nicole was curious. This dumb warlock was full of surprises and now she was watching for them. Something in the back of her mind, a voice that sound both like Ikora and Cayde at the same time told her that she should have been watching him in the first place.

She climbed to her feet and walked over to where he was sitting, crouching down by the pool at his side. She didn't look at him at first, watching him from the corner of her eye. She washed her hands and face in the warm water, even though she had just done it in the colder troughs by the wall. The warlock was visibly pouting beside her.

"Okay, what?" he asked after a minute. "Can't you go wash over there or something?" He flicked his fingers at her, sprinkling her shoulder with water.

She shrugged without looking at him, playing coy for a moment. He was going to tell her what was wrong, even if she had to pry it from him. She was beginning to figure that he didn't escape quite as unscathed as he acted from his run in with that minotaur.

He suddenly straightened, sitting up and plopping back on his butt, crossing his legs in front of him and facing her directly. "Alright, look. I lied about T-Tarios. I just wanted to see you re-react. More how you would react." The stutter was back, and his face had turned a bright red. He crossed his arms around his chest, and refused to look at her.

Nicole sat up a little straighter, looking at him finally. She tilted her head at him, trying to encourage him to continue. She wasn't sure why he was telling her this of all things, but she wasn't about to stop him, either.

"I didn't ruin his reputation. I didn't spread a silly rumor. Th-that was just- I was just being dumb, t-to see how'd you re-react. I did- It was because of me he didn't g-get into the fireteam he wanted, though. B-but that stupid rumor was- I know that's why you hate me now."

Nicole had underestimated him, and she felt bad for that. She was back to square one, back to knowing very little about this warlock but after how he had helped her that morning… She wasn't so frustrated now. If he had told her the previous night that he had been lying about the rumor story, she probably would not have believed him. She accepted it now, however. That surprised her a little, how quickly she just believed that. After a moment she decided that his stuttering had something to do with it. When he was lying or just talking, he spoke smoothly. But telling what she could only guess was a personal truth, and he got nervous.

 _What trust issues…_ She touched his knee to try and get him to keep going but he seemed to have clammed up after that. He refused to look at her now, his face still heated with embarrassment. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

That made him look at her. "Hey, don't go off acting all exasperated with me," he snapped at her suddenly. "You c-called me _friend,_ remember?" He spat the word like it was a curse that had honestly offended him. "Then when I test that, you react like everyone else. And proceed to treat me like shit for t-two days. You and I aren't friends, so you're not allowed to act all frustrated when I refused to talk feelings with you."

She glared at him. She wasn't _allowed_ to be frustrated? How dare he try to tell her what she wasn't _allowed_ to feel. And to top that little outburst off, he decided now of all times to be openly hostile, when she was there actually trying to be nice.

"Don't think I don't know your deal," he continued after a short pause, matching glare for glare. "You lose your fireteam and now you run around pretending to be people's friends only to bail on them, so you can go back to your little pity party."

Nicole was flabbergasted for a solid couple of seconds before she could get her brain to work again. _How dare you! You know nothing about me! You know nothing about what it's like to lose your_ _ **family!**_ She punched him, as hard as she could. She knew better than to aim for the fragile face, but he could stand a bruise on his shoulder. And Traveler knew he damn well deserved it.

She wasn't expecting his shoulder to squelch when she hit him, nor really the noise he made in response. He ducked sideways, turning his shoulder away from her even before she was finished recoiling, rolling with the hit the best he could.

For a second she was too angry to care that she had just found his problem. But the situation hit her again. They were stranded, without their ghosts, and the warlock had managed to get himself hurt. Like a real idiot.

She took a breath, closing her eyes. He was not the first person to get angry at her for how she dealt with her loss. He certainly was not the first who said those exact words to her, and she doubted very highly he would be the last. It still hurt, and it still made her angry. But she was above this. She was above _him._

He had helped her avoid a full blown panic attack that morning and she was trying to be grateful. He was the one that had come up with the solid plan to get their ghosts back (at least she hoped it was solid. So far she just knew that he had figured out how to get the dome down, but that was better than nothing). And he was right about the way she had been treating him. He had no right to act the way he did, but neither did she.

He had moved away from her, going to the other side of the pool and stripping his chest armor off. She could see the wound even around the undershirt. Their armor was made of self-mending material, stitching itself back together with Light. The undershirt was not so lucky. The black material had been torn and it had turned into an oily shimmer where it stuck to his shoulder.

He was trying to ignore her, and Nicole thought about ignoring him. He didn't want her help, and he wasn't trying to make her feel bad. He was just trying to clean his own wound. She sighed, quieter this time. He had helped her, and they were in this together. It would only prove him more right if she left him alone. She had been mean to him, especially last night. And he had been kind when she had panicked. The least she could do was try and return the favor.

Besides, she had a small med-kit on her belt that she kept just in case. She stood and approached him again, despite the glare she received. She made a soft 'pshh' noise at him to try to get him to knock it off but all it earned her was an even nastier glare, if that were possible.

So she held up the little bundle of gauze and disinfectant she had pulled from her belt. He paused, his glare becoming a little less heated in the face of her peace offering. After a moment he looked away and back at the armor pieces he had piled up near the water. Then he reached his hand out to take it but she held it up, wagging the finger of her other hand at him.

"What?" He asked, his voice softer now. It still held the edge of anger, but it was a little closer to gentle tone he had captured her with that morning.

Nicole would never admit it but she wanted to see that side of him again. That gentle confidence, benevolent intelligence. Nothing like the erratic little asshole he had been to her mostly thus far. She'd seen it before in him. She saw it when they had sat in the Tower pavilion and talked. When she had saved him from the titan, despite his stuttering, she had seen that remorse and kindness he was trying so hard to hide. But that morning had been the first time he had blindsided her with it, and it was that version of him she was interested in. She hoped that was the Aydin that was trying to hide beneath this annoying asshole demeanor. If that was the real him, then she was determined to pry it out into the open, because then he wouldn't need her to be his friend. There would be a hundred other guardians that would flock to a warlock like that.

Nicole was good at that sort of thing. That was why the vanguard liked to assign her mentor missions. She was good at bringing out the good side of everyone. Both combat wise, and emotionally. She usually prided herself on doing it without getting herself involved and using the natural drift of people to keep herself separated.

It's worked for her these last two years. This warlock would be no different, even if he wanted to pretend he wasn't. Even if he truly believed he was.

There was a long moment of silence between them, Nicole waiting, and Aydin assessing her. The first thing she needed to do was get to bottom of this damn trust issue he had. He was so young, it had to be a leftover personality quirk from who he was before he died. That happened sometimes, but guardians could outgrow it as they became their own person again. She hoped that by helping get past that, it would open up the good side of him she had seen that morning.

She was actually a little surprised with herself. This sudden desire to help him was a little weird for her, especially after she had felt about him not even yesterday. But she just couldn't get it out of her head. The way he had touched her cheek, spoke to her as if he just _knew_ it was going to be okay. And his eyes…

She shook herself from her thoughts just in time to watch him sigh and let his shoulders sag. He looked away from her and to the water. "Whatever…" he pouted, but his defenses were down and Nicole took that as a cue.

Davion had taught her simple medical skills. How to patch a small wound, how to set broken bones, stuff like that. She had gotten plenty of practice back in the early day when the whole fireteam would go out looking for human settlements to protect or lead back to the City. They would be gone for a month at a time, searching the wilderness for small patches of life in a land ruled by the Fallen. Some of her happiest memories were made on those missions. She never had to do this on a guardian, and it had certainly been a long time since the last time she had patched someone up like this. But it came back to her quickly. The warlock was a good patient. He kept still, and except for the occasional grimace, didn't complain about the pain. The wound was fair sized. It had bled a lot earlier but it had slowed by the time Nicole got to it. She cleaned it and wrapped his shoulder.

She patted him when she finished and sat back. He didn't say anything at first, instead going for his undershirt and putting it back on quickly. He fiddled with his armor for a moment before shrugging, rolling the newly bandaged shoulder experimentally. "Uh, thanks. I guess…" He said quietly, his face turning red again.

She gave his shoulder another little encouraging pat.

"We should get going soon."

She nodded in response.

He finally looked at her, a weirdly confused look on his face. "Look, I don't know what you th-think you're hoping t-to achieve but stop it, okay? I think I liked it better when you were being mean." He huffed. She suspected that he had more to add to that but couldn't find the words anymore. Nicole just smiled at him. Poor, confused warlock. He was a challenge for her, and she finally came to terms with that. And by the Traveler, she looked forward to beating him.

* * *

"What made your guardian name you?" Ghost had never really thought about it before. Nicole had never given him a name. But that wasn't really something that affected him. That was a choice the guardians made.

Verz was next to him in the little burrow. The soil was damp, roots of old dead trees blocked out a lot of the light from the outside. The two ghosts had been hiding together underground since the dome went up. They could hear the sounds of the vex above them and the distant hum of the dome, but not much else.

The warlock's ghost spared him a glance, before training its optic back on the outside. "Aydin has always been strange about names. He thinks they are very important."

"Why 'Verz' though? It's kind of a strange name, don't you think?" He wasn't really asking out of curiosity, to be honest, but more as a way to start small talk. They had been hiding here since the dome went up and they realized they couldn't transmat back to their guardians. Neither ghost had said much to the other that entire time.

For a moment Verz didn't reply. It buzzed and spun it's shell in a way that felt almost irritated. "That was the name my guardian chose for me. I found no personal problem with it so I allowed him to give it to me. I never asked him why he chose that one in particular." The answer seemed mechanical when it was finally given, almost rehearsed in a way.

The other ghost was quiet for a time after, not entirely sure how to reply to the tone. It found both ghost and its guardian perplexing and irritating in the way they seemed to be hiding something. A rehearsed response to hide a truer meaning, perhaps? Or maybe just being bonded with a silent hunter for so many years, her natural paranoia had rubbed off on him.

"So your guardian doesn't have a steady fireteam, huh?"

Verz made that annoyed little buzz again, this time louder. "No, Aydin is very picky about who he considers his friends." This time the tone taken was almost tired and ironic.

The other ghost spun its shell. "Nicole is like that too," he replied, understanding the tone completely. "I've been trying to get her to connect with another guardian for two years. She lost her fireteam and just kind of lost her nerve in a lot of ways."

"I know."

"You do, huh?"

"Aydin is nosey. When she was assigned to spy on him, he went through her records and found out everything he could about Foxwell."

The other ghost spun his shell in stark surprise. "Wait, you what? But those files are only for the vanguard. Classified to other guardians, right?" He was going to be mighty irritated if guardians were allowed access to such things. It would have made his life so much easier if they could just read up on other guardians.

"Yeah," Verz replied a moment later, entirely nonchalant. "But Aydin doesn't really care."

"Well, if they're classified, how'd he get into them?"

"The cyber security the Tower uses for its systems is child's play, honestly." Verz said it with such an air of snobbish superiority the other ghost was nearly instantly annoyed by it.

"So you've been invading other guardians' privacy."

"Yes," it replied flatly, not an ounce of remorse.

"That's so nice of you," he commented sourly.

"Aydin is paranoid. He likes to know what other's intentions are and if he can't figure out what you want at first glance, then he will look at what's behind the curtain."

There was a pause, one ghost watching the other. "Nicole's pretty paranoid too," he commented. "Part of the reason she has a hard time connecting with others these days."

"What is she afraid of?" Verz asked after a moment. The snobbish tone was gone, and it asked as if honestly curious.

"I don't really know anymore. I think she's afraid of being alone. But she's already alone, so who knows really."

"Maybe she's afraid of losing people. Again."

"Maybe." The ghost paused for a moment, contemplating the state of his guardian. "I just worry about her. She needs someone. She can't keep doing this alone. She might seem strong and independent but it's all a ruse. She's still not over what happened to her. And I just want her to have someone who will stand by her when she inevitably has to face her fears."

"Then I hope you find someone." Verz commented after a moment.

Disappointed that Verz refused to take the hint (because he knew the warlock's ghost was being oblivious on purpose), Nicole's ghost buzzed loudly and plowed on. "What about your warlock? Why is he such a loner?"

Verz didn't answer the question right away, instead remaining silent, their optic turned away, watching the light that streamed weakly into their little alcove.

"Verz? What about-"

"I heard you the first time."

There was another beat of silence before Nicole's ghost spoke again. "Verz." It was much less of a question now, and more an insistent demand.

Again silence, but after another brief pause, Verz buzzed loudly in exasperation. "Alright look, you belong to huntress so you wouldn't understand, but warlocks have secrets and Aydin is no exception. You could probably say he has more secrets than your average. And secrets means we have to be careful. And while I appreciate your proposal, it's not ever going to be that simple. We can't trust anyone, got it? We can't trust other ghosts, we can't trust other warlocks, we can't trust the factions, regardless of what Lakshmi says. We can't trust the city council, consensus, or vanguard. _Especially_ the vanguard. And the last time I checked, Foxwell reports directly to one or more of those parties, so by extension-"

"You can't trust us," the other ghost finished.

Verz bobbed in the air, mimicking a nod. "I'm sorry, truly I am, but that's just how it is. For the moment anyway."

There was a pause in the conversation as the hunter's ghost contemplated what he had just been told. "For the moment," he echoed quietly. "What do you mean, 'for the moment'?"

"I mean, 'for the moment'," it replied cryptically. The other ghost was about to get _really_ irritated if it planned to leave it at that, but it elaborated a moment later. "Maybe in a few months. Right now, things are a little crazy." It said this in such a world-weary tone, the other ghost couldn't help but be suddenly curious as to what 'secrets' could be so important. "Things will blow over soon enough. And maybe by that point Aydin will have as better idea of what he wants to do with his talents."

Again silence fell between them. Finally the hunter's ghost spoke again. "You know, secrets are easier to bare when you share them." His voice was quiet, almost as weak as he knew his argument was.

Verz just laughed at him, and said nothing more on the subject.

* * *

Nicole quickly discovered that the warlock's helmet was a treasure trove of useful information. He told her in no short order that he had his own navigational suite that was completely independant of the ghost. Of course, the ghost enhanced a lot of it by feeding him additional information through the neural link, but Aydin was far from helpless by himself. Whereas Nicole had been navigating the good old fashioned way, using the sun as her guide. Aydin thought that was entirely archaic but also impressive because he would not have thought about that.

He was being very serious about all this. Finally, it seemed, the absence of his ghost was starting to get to him. He had stopped that incessant babbling that had seemed to follow him like a swarm of flies all up until last night, instead leading her through the jungle on a path only he seemed to know. It was slow going. The grace he had managed to muster in the dark of the night before was all but gone now; he stumbled over seemingly everything.

The first conduit he lead them to was hardly guarded. Just two harpies and a goblin. They were dead before they even knew they were under attack. The warlock fiddled with the machinery for a moment, before a bright white glass ball the size of a human head popped out like a gumball. He promptly smashed it against a nearby stone, shattering it.

"On to the next," he told her.

Word of them must have spread through the collective mind. The next conduit was heavily guarded. Three harpies with shields, a minotaur major, and a small collection of goblins. Aydin wasn't much use in a fight as Nicole quickly found out. His shoulder was hurting more than it probably should be, throwing his already poor aim off even further. Thankfully, Nicole's skill more than made up for his shortcomings. After the brief battle, Nicole was the one who took the orb and smashed it once Aydin relieved the machine of it.

They stepped back out into the Venus sunshine, Aydin rubbing his shoulder. "Now we wait," he said to her silent question.

They traversed the jungle some more, avoiding the minotaurs that now roamed the thick vegetation hunting them. Aydin's shoulder was slowing him down. The wound had been good sized and had bled a lot by the time Nicole bandaged it. All the walking around, the heat of the jungle, and the fighting was putting a strain on him he just wasn't used to. Nicole knew what it felt like to have to carry wounds. That had also been a part of her training.

They found some more caves to hide in as the morning passed into the afternoon. The warlock rested for a while, Nicole stood watch. She began to wonder just how long they would have to wait for the dome to finally come down, when suddenly the air began to shudder.

It woke the warlock from the nap he was taking in the back of the cave. He came to stand beside her at the cave entrance, and together they listened as the hum in the valley changed pitch then fell away a few seconds later. Nicole smiled, grabbing his good shoulder and shaking him lightly.

Several long seconds passed, but after only a short delay, Nicole saw the flash of light, feeling as if it came from behind her eyes and all around her at the same time. It felt like a part of her was returned, the familiar and comforting Light of her ghost, merging with her own energies, and the hum of his voice. He spoke no words to her, but she could feel his relief as strong as her own.

Beside her, Aydin's shoulders sagged in obvious relief. Verz appeared in physical form beside him, giving the other guardian a scan, clicking unhappily when it found the wound. It started chittering at him, half words and broken phrases, some of it not even english. Their half mind speak, which Nicole was starting to find a little cute.

 _He really did it, Ghost. Aydin did it._

There was a surprised little ping from the ghost. "A first name basis? What happened between you two?"

She gave him her memories, letting him see the damn vex head, his plan to free them, her near panic and his sudden warm support of her. And her own sudden determination to see that gentle and intelligent side that this crisis had brought out.

Her ghost gave a happy ping in response, but underneath she could feel his unease. He usually didn't try to cover his emotions from her. It was nearly impossible. She almost questioned him on it, but the warlock tapped her shoulder, bringing her out of her head and back into the current moment.

"We should leave now, right? We accomplished our mission. I really don't feel like fighting off hoards of Vex."

Neither did Nicole. She was exhausted, ready for a hot meal, a shower, and her own bed again. His wound was healed, but the warlock's shoulder still sagged in exhaustion. She nodded, spinning her hand in a 'wrap it up' motion.

The two ghosts responded and in a flash of light, both guardians were transmatted out of the venus jungles and back to the safety of their separate ships.

* * *

"So they tried to separate you and your ghost?" Cayde was interested enough to be serious for once.

"I don't think it was on purpose," the warlock answered. "That's just how it happened."

"I've never heard of those barriers being impenetrable, even to ghost transmat."

"It was sealed. There was no atmospheric movement on the inside. No way in and no way out."

"An attempt to quarantine, perhaps?" Ikora offered.

The warlock shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, we got our ghosts back and bugged out. No point in staying. Our mission was completed to specification."

The debriefing was coming to an end and Nicole couldn't have been more grateful if she tried. She really wanted that shower. The warlock was doing most of the talking, so Nicole was content to sit in her corner and listen as he recounted the events of the last two days.

Ikora and Cayde were the only vanguard present. It was rare that she would debrief directly to them, in person no less. But she wasn't about to start questioning them. She was old enough to know better than to imply Cayde was wrong, or try to understand why Ikora did the things she did.

Ikora suddenly closed the log book she had been scribbling in, the sound of it a signal that the meeting was over. "Thank you both for your time and skills. Rest, you are dismissed. Foxwell, if you would stay for a moment more please."

Aydin stood, then looked over at the huntress once Ikora finished. Nicole looked back at him, meeting his gaze evenly. She watched, with some interest, as his expression ranged from confusion, to some peculiar knowing look that seemed to settle somewhere between anger and sadness. He looked away from her, making a point of leaving her without so much as a goodbye. He looked hurt somehow, and she wondered if he had forgotten for a moment who she was working for. She found it interesting that he would act betrayed. Wasn't the vanguard supposed to be on his side, too?

Somewhere in her mind, originating from the ghost, she could feel a whisper of a memory itching at her. A dark little earthy cave with roots hanging down blocking out the light. _We can't trust the vanguard._ It echoed for a moment, feeling like another presence in the room. She knew the vanguard couldn't hear it but she still looked at them, almost waiting for them to react.

It had sounded like Verz.

"So Foxwell, you've been chained to our annoying little friend for a few days now. Got two whole days with just the two of you. Any first impressions you'd like to share?"

Her ghost hesitated. He blipped uneasily from inside her head, the memory, one of his, itching at her. She shook her head, annoyed at him, and forcefully summoning him into the physical world.

If the vanguard noticed the hesitation, neither of them said anything. The ghost glanced around for a second, before they agreed on what to say. It was more of an acceptance on the ghost's part. Nicole promised him she would be asking what this odd behavior was all about. But now was obviously not the time.

"He's harmless. Annoying, paranoid for no reason. He think this is a big game. So he likes to play tricks. But otherwise, he doesn't seem to be any kind of threat. Uncomfortable in his skin, perhaps, but who isn't at that age?"

"Have you learned anything about his disappearances?" Ikora asked.

"Yes, actually. He's a scavenger. And there is a _lot_ of salvage. Some of it is worth quite a bit. He may want to keep it a secret because he doesn't have the skill or the confidence to do active combat bounties for glimmer and other resources. He is capable, however, of being a tactical consultant."

"He's hiding a salvage yard? What about the Fallen?" Cayde asked, sounding almost incredulous.

"Apparently Fallen can't swim so he's been searching sunken shipwrecks off the coast, North America, on the eastern seaboard."

There was a collective sigh of relief in the room. Nicole found it a little curious. They actually thought he might have been doing something bad?

"And the Fallen?"

"Little Fallen activity in that area. There was one, we had eyes on it at one point. Aydin's rather fondly named him 'Harpoon Guy' because it apparently tried to spear him with a harpoon or something. Aydin is not strong enough to kill it yet, but the Fallen didn't seem too inclined to start a fight. It just wandered around, trying to scare us, I suspect. Didn't even get that close, to be honest. We've come down to a theory that Aydin wishes to kill it himself once he is strong enough, as a goal to work toward."

"I suppose that's admirable," Cayde commented. "Sounds like a warlock, though. Gotta do things the hard way."

Ikora didn't respond to Cayde's small jab, instead plowing on into her next question. "His paranoia, do you know anything about it?"

Her ghost glanced back to her for a second. "We are undecided yet if it stems from a bad experience, perhaps during training or his journey back to the City, or just a leftover personality quirk from his last life. Obviously we have no idea what kind of life he lead before, and phantom memories can occasionally persist through the first year of life." The ghost did an approximation of a shrug. "In other words, no. We have no clear idea yet. We need more time."

"And your current assessment of him, for the record?" Ikora opened the book on the table again, poising her pen to transcribe Nicole's response.

Again, ghost and hunter shared a glance, silently agreeing on what to say. Nicole still had questions, and she knew her time with the Warlock was not over. She wanted to personally train him, after all. Someone with his lack of skill, she didn't feel like trusting anyone else with that kind of job.

"We didn't find anything suspicious about him that didn't have a reasonable explanation," her ghost said finally. "He is young, and already has a distaste for City politics. But I don't think it will become a threat. His connection to Osiris could be an asset if we don't alienate him. And besides all that, I really do think he just needs more time to get accustomed to this life. Nicole would like to personally train him. With confidence in his own abilities, he will surely thrive."

There was silence for a while. Ikora scribbled quickly, finishing soon after. She closed her book again and tucked it in her robes. "Very well. We appreciate your assessment. We will have you two run one more mandatory mission together. After that, we will leave it up to you to train on less strict grounds. We will want a report once the last mission is completed. If you intend to train him, we may ask for additional follow up, but seeing as it will be voluntary, do not feel forced. Of course, any training commission earned will be given regardless of the guardian."

Ikora had that look in her eyes like she was thinking of things that really had nothing to do with the present. They were satisfied with her work, and they believed her. She nodded upon her dismissal, saluting her vanguard leader and leaving the room.

She smiled as she left the room. It felt good, doing the right thing. Whatever had happened between the warlock and the titan, it had created some bad blood, and Nicole knew she would have to get down to the bottom of that in due time. For now, she was just proud that she managed to single handedly save the warlock from being in some deep trouble. He had been practically condemned, and the damn idiot wouldn't take anything seriously.

She had a lot of work cut out for her, but it felt good to have a task. Of course, she would have to remember not to let him annoy her. He seemed really good at that, but they had been good upon leaving Venus. The look he had given her when he had been dismissed gave her the feeling she may have taken a step back with him, but she was good at worming her way onto people's good sides.

It was in the elevator down to the residential block when Nicole remembered the odd memory from her ghost. _What had that all been about?_

He pinged discomfort at her again. "Just something Verz said when we were hiding together," he replied from inside her. He gave her the memory, the elevator fading away briefly to the feeling of being very small in a very cramped space.

" _We can't trust the vanguard,"_ echoed in her head. Verz, sounding annoyed and world-weary. Of course that little ghost was good at sounding annoyed. " _You belong to a huntress so you wouldn't understand, but warlocks have secrets and Aydin is no exception. You could probably say he has more than your average."_

The memory faded away, the elevator door opened with a ding. _What kind of secrets?_

"Fancy warlock secrets?" The ghost's guess was as good as hers.

 _Osiris secrets maybe?_

"Like I said, fancy warlock secrets."

She nodded to herself. _Probably something like that. I'm sure it's nothing to be terribly concerned about. We just have to gain his trust and I'm sure he'll tell us when he's ready._

"And I'm just going to assume that that 'gain his trust' spiel and how happy you are to be helping him is all a one way street, right?" He said with such irritation that Nicole couldn't help the smile. Her ghost knew her too well.

 _I don't plan to get attached. Train him, open him up, get him a fireteam, fade from his life when he's too busy to remember little ol' me._

"Just like everyone else…" the ghost sighed. "Sometimes I wish someone else would work as hard for you as you do for other people."

Nicole smiled again. It was a nice sentiment. But she had already had that. She had those kind of people and she lost them. You didn't get chances like that twice.

* * *

 _Afterword: I am so, so, so sorry! Okay, so my life kind of backfired a little. I moved out of my apartment, and then I had to find a job, then I just didn't feel like writing. And just. Yeah. Shit happened. And I know its been four months but hey, a new chapter! Finished the Venus Adventures, but I've run into a small plot hole I need to fill in so the next chapter will not be out next week. Actually, just expect the next chapter 'eventually'._

 _Reviews..._

 _Guest: Yes_

 _DivineEnigma:_ _Glad you like it, and right now. :)_

 _Ch33kiChaps: The romance is coming. Hold tight. This story is gunna be pretty long, and we've only just gotten through phase one, so. Also, right now._

 _F1REST4R, oozak12, spacedolphin, steel2-0, and the other guest: I'm glad you guys enjoyed it, and I'm so sorry for the long wait. Here's hoping the next chapter won't take so long._

 _Thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorite'd, and subbed to alerts. You guys are the best, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter!_


	9. How Trust Grew

9\. Also Known as the Time Aydin Invites her in for Tea

The next morning, there was no mission assigned for them on the board, so Nicole assumed that the vanguard was giving them a day off. Usually, the huntress took those as a chance to get out and explore Venus by herself but after the last two days, she was happy keeping her feet on terran soil.

She went back to bed for a few hours after checking the board. No reason to be up. She messaged the warlock about it, so he wouldn't be wasting his time. He wasn't able to leave the Tower without her, but she figured he would find something to do. Warlocks were good at that, always had something to keep them busy.

It was waning into the afternoon when she finally got up and started her search for the warlock. Since he couldn't leave, she decided to go find him the old fashion way instead of pinging his ghost. His apartment was only a few levels below her's so she checked there first.

When knocking yielded no answer, she turned to leave. Maybe he was in the library. Her ghost blipped at her before she got too far, catching her attention once again with his odd hesitation.

"Let's snoop," he said after a minute, sounding small behind his own suggestion.

 _What? No, Ghost, we're not snooping in his apartment. What is wrong with you?_

"He snooped on us though! How do you think he knew about what happened to Davion and the others? And all the other guardians you've trained since then?"

 _That's all public archives… isn't it?_

"I can show you the security wall I ran into when I tried to access his information."

 _Well, how do you know that was how he even got them. There are other ways of gathering information than looking it up in a database._

"First of all, he's a warlock. How many warlocks do you know would go somewhere else besides an archive if they knew that the info they wanted was in there. I mean, the security was pretty serious, but definitely crackable for a ghost, given time."

Nicole wasn't sure how she felt about it still. She was trying to gain his trust. And she knew that if he ever found out, she would never get anywhere with him. _Why do you want to snoop anyway?_

The echo of the memory was back, Verz's voice explaining to her again about all the people they couldn't trust. "I'm honestly curious, Nicole. What kind of secret is he hiding that he can't even trust his fellow guardian? What if that secret is what the Vanguard is afraid of? Ignoring it would be disobeying orders, wouldn't it?"

She felt herself being manipulated. Her ghost was playing off her emotions, and she knew it. At the same time, she knew he was right and that was why he was doing it in the first place.

She hesitated, then sighed, her shoulders sagging. She'd been standing in the empty hallway for the last several minutes, having her silent debate. She finally looked back at the unassuming grey door. What would she find on the other side?

"It would be easy to hack the door…" her ghost said quietly.

She didn't like this, but now it was the budding fear of what she would find on the other side.

She didn't get much chance to think any further on it. The elevator down the hall dinged loudly and Nicole reckoned she jumped about five feet. Of all the people to come walking out, somehow it was the warlock. He spotted her, hesitated for a second, then looked behind him as if he was expecting an ambush.

She waved sheepishly at him, standing guiltily by his door. The confusion on his face seemed to intensify, along with, to her endless shame, the mistrust.

"Hello, lassy, you looking for me?"

She nodded, her ghost finally coming to her rescue. "Since the Vanguard didn't assign us any mission and you can't leave the Tower, we were just coming to check in and make sure you didn't need anything."

"I need to take a trip to the Reef, or Mercury, but neither of those things are obviously going to happen until this bloody probation is up." He shrugged. "But thanks, I suppose. For remembering me," he commented sourly. He seemed like he was in a bad mood, and Nicole wondered if she could get him to tell her why.

"Is there anywhere else that we _can_ take you?"

"No," he sighed, sounding suddenly tired. He unlocked his door, Nicole stepping away to give him space. "You want to come in for tea?"

She blinked in surprise. It was such a mundane but oddly kind offer that she was taken aback by it. She smiled and nodded, letting him lead her in. She would get to see the inside of his apartment anyway, without having to snoop afterall.

His apartment was small, and nearly identical to her's, except it looked much less lived in than her own. His was in an inside ring, so it had no windows, and until he turned on a lamp beside the door, was pitch black.

She instantly felt better once he started turning the lights on, and got right to setting an ancient looking kettle on the stove to boil. The main living room was nearly empty save for a bookshelf and a desk that had at blanket of loose paper covering it, spilling down onto the floor around it. The kitchen was small, the cabinets had no doors for some reason, and nothing in them. There was a small table between the kitchen and living room, with only a small decorative glass bowl with with a single, small pumpkin in it.

"What's with the pumpkin?" Her ghost asked, for both of them.

Aydin looked over at her from the kitchen, glanced at the pumpkin, then grinned. "That stupid thing. It's a silly gift from a friend."

 _Friend? Didn't think he had any…_

"A friend?"

"Yeah," he replied, his smile gentle and affectionate. Her curiosity was very suddenly piqued. "Another Osiris Acolyte. She thinks pumpkins are good things to have so she gave it to me."

"What's her name?"

"Oh um-"

He was cut off by a loud crack over by his desk that made both guardians jump a little. Nicole looked over at Verz, where he was noisily depositing what looked like fifty pound tomes onto the desk. One by one.

Each one hit the desk made the whole thing shake, papers drifting away. Nicole looked over at the warlock who was watching his teapot and looking like he was trying very hard to smother laughter. This oddness went on for awhile before Aydin was beside her with two cups of tea and inviting her to join him on the carpeted floor.

"I've never had a visitor before so I never thought to invest in furniture."

She waved his concern away. She was hardly bothered by it. It felt almost more intimate, sitting with him in the dim light, sipping hot tea. It was a nice change compared to the last few days. Having a peaceful moment with him was exactly what she needed. She could learn a lot more about him this way.

Some of the papers that had fallen off the desk had drifted pretty close to where she had chosen to sit. Close enough that she reached out to one and picked it up. She looked back at the warlock for a second, silently asking his permission. He made an agreeable motion so she examined the page.

Half of it looked like an alphabet soup of what might have been a mathematical equation. The bottom half was a diagram of sorts, but Nicole couldn't make heads or tails if it. It was oddly beautiful in it's straight edge lines that seemed to have a sort of ordered chaos. A lot of time had gone into it.

"Energy conversion," Aydin said eventually. "Experimenting with Light and how it changes. Part of my research also has to do with how Light reacts to Darkness sources and how they change each other, but all of that research is classified so I can't keep it here."

"Research funded by Osiris?"

"By the order, yeah. Osiris himself isn't around much. I've never actually seen him, myself. Read books, reports, educational papers he's written. The order has interest in the interactions between Light and Dark. Well, a lot of interest in the Dark. Because I'm one of the few that is still living in the City, so close to the Traveler, my purpose is better suited to Light research."

"And this research is classified? The Vanguard doesn't have access to it?"

"Yes and no. Half of my research is on Mercury. The half I do most of the time is here," he gestured to the desk. "The Vanguard, and by extension, the Consensus, still funds this part. So the part that is legal and favored by the Consensus is not classified. The half that isn't is funded by the Order. They build off each other. I'm coming to an end of what can be done here for my current report. After my probation is up I need to spend some time on Mercury and finish the report there."

"So you'll be disappearing once we finish our last mission?"

"For a few days, yeah. I don't spend much time there usually. The Vanguard calls me back with mandatory mission if I stay too long. Besides, it's quiet there. Aside from the occasional vex…" he sighed suddenly. "And Titan interferences, it's easy to get a lot of work done in very little time. It's an environment heavy on quiet study. It's easy to get lost. I love it."

"What kind of Titan interferences?"

"Oh, the Sunbreakers. The actual order that teaches sunbreaker types how to use solar energy. A large portion of them hang around Mercury. I think Osiris hired them to protect his temples. They can get rowdy sometimes."

The conversation petered out for a while. They sat in the quiet, sipping their tea for a while.

"So, why were you here?" he asked after a while. It seemed innocent enough but Nicole wasn't stupid. She knew a probing question when she heard one.

"Like we said earlier, we were just coming in to check on you," her ghost replied without missing a beat. "Since you can't leave the Tower without us."

"Yeah, that's what you told me," he was watching her with that frightening intensity again, calculating and recording her every movement. She felt naked beneath his gaze.

She fidgeted and shook her head. "We weren't snooping, if that's what you're getting at," her ghost replied defensively.

"Didn't say you were, I was just curious." He shrugged, still watching her with that uncomfortable intensity. "I just wanted to know what your real intentions were, is all."

There a pause of silence in the room, but Nicole's head was filled with internal screaming, her ghost apologizing furiously underneath it all. Aydin was watching her still, his ghost floating silently at his shoulder, judging them. A sly little smile spread across his lips, making him seem almost cat like.

"Okay, look, we were here to snoop," her ghost finally admitted. "I mean, the Vanguard assigned us to watch you because they obviously think you're hiding some big dangerous secret but the more time we spend with you the more we realize that what you may be hiding isn't dangerous at all and that if you just _trusted_ us, we could help… you…"

Aydin had started laughing. "That is biggest load of crap I think I have ever heard. You have no idea what I'm hiding. The only reason you know I'm hiding anything at all is because Verz told you." He still had the cat like smile across his face, making her uncomfortable.

"We're just trying to figure out what the vanguard thinks is so dangerous about you. That's all."

His expression changed then, becoming softer. His smile turned warmer. He put down the cup down beside him and scooted closer to her. "Nicole Foxwell, I will make you a promise."

And there is was again. That benevolent intelligence, the warmth in his eyes, the gentle confidence. Nicole was a deer in the headlights, mesmerized, enthralled. He took her hands, his gloves soft and black against the pale glow of her own hands. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever he was about to say, it was going to the truth, wholly and completely.

"I will never, ever do _anything_ to hurt the Vanguard, the City, her people, my fellow guardians, or the Traveler."

Nicole was captured once again by that gaze. And even as he moved back away, standing and collecting their cups, Nicole couldn't seem to get her brain back. She sat in his living room as he moved quietly around his kitchen, her face blazing hot. Even her ghost was silent beside her, fluttering his shell in a response to her roil of emotion.

 _By the Traveler, that is attractive._

She felt more than saw her ghost suddenly turn to look at her. She tried to ignore him for a half a second before looking back at him, her face even hotter.

Aydin came back a few moments later. "Anyway, without trying to sound like I'm kicking you out, I do need to finish getting this report written up. You're welcome to stay of course." He shrugged, turning on the lamp at the desk and pulling the chair out."

Nicole smiled politely, still trying to get her feathers to flatten after the latest ruffling they were given. She stood and and gave him a goodbye pat on his shoulder. Her face still felt hot and she made her escape quickly. If Aydin noticed her fluster, he thankfully made no comment about it. He just looked down at her with mild amusement, before turning to the desk.

It was only alone in the hallway did she finally let her composure break down completely. She put a hand on the wall beside her, using it to support herself.

"I think I understand your desire to help him now," her ghost said quietly.

She only nodded, still trying to recover. If this was going to work, she really needed to get herself under control. She couldn't let him keep doing that to her.

* * *

A new set of missions was available by morning, along with it, Nicole and Aydin's final assignment. It was still early when she ventured back to his apartment to retrieve him. She actually enjoyed the interaction from last night. Going out to find him instead of having her ghost ping him was much more of a personal notion.

It was still fairly early when she rang the bell so she was only mildly surprised when he came to the door looking like he had just rolled out of bed. As in, he wasn't even wearing a shirt.

 _Oh, hello…_ She blinked a few times, giving him a once over.

He squinted at her in the light of the hallway, his apartment beyond him pitch black. "What?"

"Good morning," her ghost chirped. "New mission was posted." She smiled at him.

He rubbed his eyes, stifling a yawn. "It's way too early for missions, can't we do it later? Or tomorrow?"

"Don't you want your probation lifted?"

He paused for a second, still squinting at her. After a long moment he sighed, waving at her to follow him inside. The darkness inside was terrible, and again Nicole only felt better when he popped on the kitchen light to put on a kettle to boil.

"I don't think I've been asleep all that long," he explained, yawning again.

"Two hours," his ghosts provided. It had appeared in the short hallway that lead to the bedroom. "Spent way too long on that damn report again."

"It has to be perfect, Verz. The Vanguard reads that draft, remember."

The ghost made a noise, something between a grunt and a sigh. "Good morning, Miss Foxwell," it greeted.

She nodded politely at it.

"Go get dressed, Aydin, I'll get the tea."

The warlock made a face. "Don't touch my teapot."

There was a pause in the room, Aydin and ghost having a brief staredown. It ended when Verz fluttered it's shell in agitation. "Whatever," it muttered, disappearing in a puff of light.

Nicole came into the kitchen with him, mostly just to be in the light. The living room was still too dark. She watched him for a moment as he brewed his tea, picking up details she had missed before. He was wearing a small necklace that usually hid beneath his armor, a white glowing material that didn't quite look like stone, hanging from a thin chain. He was much more of lithe build than she initially assumed, his armor giving him some much needed bulk. And while she hadn't noticed it right away, when he cleaned the two mugs still in the sink from the day before, she thought she spied some kind of dark tattoo on the palm of his hand. She only caught a glimpse of it before he was pouring the tea and handing her a mug.

This tea was significantly more bitter than the fruity flavor he had served her the day before. So bitter, in fact, she made a face. It took her a second to swallow it. She looked back at the warlock in time to catch him smother a smile.

He pointed to the table behind her without saying a word, where a pile of sugar cubes in a bowl had appeared without her noticing. "Morning tea is bitter. Afternoon tea is sweet," he informed her still with that almost sarcastic smile.

She stuck her tongue out at him. He threw his head back and laughed; Nicole couldn't help the smile that spread across her lips at it.

He took a few sips from his own mug, not even bothered by the taste, before wandering off to the bedroom. Nicole didn't have to wait very long for him to come back, fully geared now. She smiled when he returned, having finished the tea. He looked significantly more awake now.

They didn't say much to each other until they had both made to the elevator up to the main pavilion, but the silence between them was comfortable, almost pleasant. It was only when the elevator doors were closed that Aydin spoke.

"So I get coming in for a social visit yesterday, coming to check on me. Which was nice, don't get me wrong. But why didn't you just call me today?"

She shrugged, her ghost appearing at her shoulder to explain. "Yesterday was a very pleasant experience for both parties, we hoped. It felt more personal to just come find you instead of calling you."

"Personal…" he echoed. He made a soft humming noise, then fell quiet to chew on her words for a bit.

"We've come to the conclusion that the Vanguard was wrong about you. We understand that you have secrets and we _are_ curious, but we also figure that with time, either you'll tell us, or it isn't our business to know. So we respect warlock secrets, despite our desire to snoop yesterday…" Aydin snorted quietly from his side of the elevator. "And on that note, we desire a new approach. Since you don't have another fireteam, and I'm sorry, but it's obvious you really need one, we're going to train you, even after this mission is over."

He grunted, shrugging his shoulders. "And here I was figuring you'd want to get away from me as soon as you could."

"Our last few interactions were good, weren't they?"

He looked over at her, giving her the assessing look that always made her feel so exposed. "I suppose."

She patted his shoulder, mouthing his name and giving him a reassuring smile. She knew that it could be disconnecting to have her ghost speaking for her, but those were her words too. Aydin needed a friend, and she wanted to be that friend. At least until he could find others better suited to him than her.

He paused, his eyes getting a little wider. There was a half second beat of stillness then his face turned the color of a ripe tomato. "That-t's good, I supp-pose."

She stifled a laugh. It was her turn to ruffle his feathers. "So, I hope that we can be true friends, then," her ghost finished softly.

Aydin was quiet for a long moment, the silence in the elevator turning awkward. "I'll consider it. But I also appreciate your offer of training. I'll take you up on it. We'll see how the 'friends' bit works out though. You should definitely come over for tea more often."

The elevator door opened just then, and Aydin rushed out, his blush so intense she could see it in his ears. She smiled after him, enjoying her first victory in a while.

* * *

Their mission took them to the Moon this time, which Nicole was not exactly thrilled about. Luna was riddled with tunnels and chasms and who knew what kind of monsters hid in those shadows. Maybe it was the stark light and black shadows that tripped her out, or maybe it was the silence, only broken by the distant rumbling and her own breathing. It was a fear she would never really admit to, that the ground would crack open and swallow her whole.

Aydin arrived after she did, like usual, and Nicole didn't give him much chance to get acclimated to the gravity before she summoned her sparrow and blazed a path to the Hellmouth.

It was just a simple scouting mission, thankfully. Another guardian had gone into the Hellmouth a few weeks prior and had cleared out a ritual sight of some kind, but along the way reported a heavy fallen presence among the hive. Their job today was to spy on the Exile movements around the area and to stop them if possible. If they were getting so bold suddenly, than perhaps it would be beneficial to keep an eye on them and curb their advances.

Previous guardian reports had told of a large group of servitors being moved from a nearby valley to a hidden crater sight just outside the Hellmouth. Exile had been moving them in small groups every few days, and nobody could begin to fathom why.

Based on the previous patterns of arrival, supposedly there was going to be more arrivals today. Their job was to keep an eye out and see where they were being taken, and if possible, try to find out the reason.

They found themselves on a ridge high above the Hellmouth. From there, they could see down into the pit for as far as the light could reach. The green haze the obscured everything down there gave Nicole the creeps like little else could do. Fallen patrols roamed the areas far beneath them, for the moment oblivious to their presence.

They were both silent for a time, Nicole with her sniper and Aydin with his spyglass. Why he didn't just carry a sniper was beyond her, but she supposed that she was in no place to judge him on his oddities.

"Skiffs are supposed to be arriving soon to drop off the servitors, when they arrive, what do you think we should do?" her ghost asked over an open channel between the guardians.

Aydin was quiet for a moment, and even though he was right next to her, his voice came in better over the comm. "We can just stay up here and watch. Or try to sneak closer."

It had been a test question, seeing if he had any bright ideas on how to tackle this particular mission. He seemed pretty good at thinking outside the box so Nicole was a little disappointed when he suggested the obvious course of action. But then she supposed that might just be for the best anyway.

"The valley on far end is where they are keeping them, according to reports."

"Should we get closer?" He turned his head to look at her, but with his helmet, she couldn't see his expression.

She nodded and picked up, heading down the hill to use it as cover from the valley. She saw more than heard the small rocks tumble past her as he made an ungraceful attempt to follow her. She mentally added that to the list of things to train him for, movement over rough terrain.

They made it around the long away, trying to avoid where the mountain dipped into the valley. The sound of a skiff breaking through orbit, broke the silence in half. Nicole jumped half a mile without meaning to, looking back at Aydin who had ducked down and was scanning the sky for it.

It was already in the crater valley when they finally made it back to the top of the ridge, looking down at the cluster of buildings of an abandoned pre-golden outpost. Fallen crawled through the alleyways and buildings, snipers perched around the perimeter and on some of the taller buildings. The approach was not going to be easy.

"Hey Verz, you have that map of the tunnels beneath this place?"

Nicole felt the ping from his ghost resonate through her's and a map overlayed her vision for a moment. It showed her a tangle of tunnels that could only assume were just under their feet. She shuddered at the thought.

A section lit up, a part that had to be smack in the center of the crater. "That tunnel peeks up in the crater, the other half comes out below us." Aydin pointed down behind them.

 _There's the bright idea_. She knew he would come up with something. She just wished it didn't have to do with tunnels.

"If we get caught in those tunnels, we'll be sitting ducks," her ghost contested, mostly for her benefit.

"Yeah, but at least that approach affords us some element of surprise. I doubt you have enough ammo to take out all those snipers down there."

She paused, wanting to protest, but after a brief mental tally, realized he was right. Besides, she wouldn't be able to get them all even if she had the ammunition. They would duck down into once she started shooting.

"I have a better idea," Aydin said suddenly. "You do have enough to get quite a few of them, and if they're too busy dealing with little miss sneaky sniper, they won't be expecting me to go in through the tunnels."

 _Better?! That is not a better plan!_ Any plan that required them to split up was simply a bad idea. But Aydin was already sliding his way down the hill.

"Don't start firing until I'm in position, obviously," he said over comm, his breath already heavy as he sprinted over the open ground. "We'll keep comms up."

She could hear him breathing that way, so it would always sound like he was right beside her, and she would know the moment he was in trouble. She wondered briefly if he did that to make her feel better. She didn't get much chance to ponder it.

"Start shooting when you can, love." His voice came across quieter like he was trying to whisper. "There is a lot of Fallen down here."

She could almost hear the fear in his voice. She was quick to start, the tremble in him like a strike of lightning to her own blood. She picked off four, ducked down to reload, took out four more. A captain had appeared when she peeked out the third time. It took another clip to down him. She burned a synth, reloaded, peeked out for the fourth time and was met with only silence and stillness.

She could hear the gunfire and explosions now from Aydin's end. His breathing was harsh in her ear. "I found the servitors! Better yet, they found me!" He laughed, an almost maniacal sound interrupted by a sharp fitzing noise. His breathing cut out, the only noise for ten long seconds were a series of fitzing noises that Nicole felt like she had heard before but couldn't seem to place it. "I'm going to need some help," he continued suddenly, sounding very calm.

She was moving before he even finished speaking. She climbed up the incline, and leaped down over the ledge, using her jump to keep herself from landing too hard. She landed on a building, slid off and landed in a puff of moondust. She ducked inside a building, finding two shanks and a very distressed sounding dreg. She wasted no time, her scout blowing its head off without trouble.

"I'm alright, lass, calm down."

He could hear her breathing too, she realized with a jolt. He could hear just how scared she was. Somehow that brought her a little comfort. The tunnel opened up beneath her, a great big angry maw ready to swallow her. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat, the blood suddenly roaring in her ears.

"Foxwell."

His voice jolted her. It pushed her into action, and somehow calmed the screaming in her head. Her vision was clear again in a snap, his voice had been so crystal and sharp. She was halfway down the tunnel before she had another second to think. She couldn't let herself be scared. She had a warlock to protect. This wasn't like before. She wasn't leaving anyone behind this time.

He was on the other side of the cluster enemies. Most of them were focused on him, they didn't see her coming, probably expecting the forces she dealt with on top to be enough to hold her for longer than they actually had. She tore into the captain and his crew of vandals like they were paper.

Aydin was further down the tunnel still, farther than she could see him. But she could see the lights from his fusion rifle as it lit the tunnel, brief flashes of blue guiding her towards him. She could still hear him over the comm, his breathing sharp and ragged in her ears.

Nicole cut down the last vandal and was rounding the bend, there was only a single servitor left, floating before Aydin with its shell open like an excited ghost. She paused, taking a second to absorb the scene before her. Aydin was standing in its gaze, his gun limp at his side, his whole body rigid. She couldn't hear him anymore, and the silence struck her like a hammer.

"Kill them!" Verz was in her ear cutting the silence like a hot knife, its voice full of static and pain. "They're hurting him!" It was a plea, full of panic.

The shell was open, leaving it vulnerable. It only took a handful of well placed shots and it was reduced to scrap. Without its light, the tunnel fell into pitch darkness. Her ghost was at her shoulder in a flash, illuminating the tunnel. Aydin was only a few feet from her, on his knees cradling his head like it was suddenly too heavy for his shoulders.

"What just happened? Are you alright?"

He only shook his head, refusing to move otherwise. "You didn't hear that humming?" His voice came over the comm. He sounded exhausted, strained.

 _Humming?_

"We didn't hear anything."

"It was probably just battle stress," Verz interjected suddenly, its voice coming in very loud and clear compared to just a moment ago. "Aydin didn't sleep well last night. He froze up. It won't happen again Miss Foxwell. We'll meet you back in the City."

 _Verz is in a hurry… hiding something…?_

She felt the telepathic equivalent of a shrug from her ghost. He had no clue either. Regardless of what she thought, the idea of getting out of these damn tunnels was met with joy from the hunter.

The warlock disappeared in a puff of light, Verz not even waiting for Aydin to regain his composure.

 _I hope he's okay._ It was almost an afterthought. She didn't exactly doubt Verz, even if his behavior was odd. Then again, when was it not? Aydin had probably just frozen up. But with only one servitor left, she wondered what had frightened him so bad he had done it then of all moments. Something else to work on, she supposed.

* * *

She beat him back to the City, even though he left several minutes before her. His ship pulled into dock, but instead of landing on the hangar pads to be stored, it got pulled forward into one of the prep bays.

She had been waiting for him to arrive. The more she thought about the way he froze up, and the way had been holding his head afterward, the more worried for him she became. She couldn't decide if the servitors had hurt him in some way or if he had actually frozen up. Even replaying the memory, courtesy of her ghost, no answers could be gleaned. In the end, she just wanted to check on him, make sure he was going to be alright.

She walked down to where his ship finally came to rest in the hangar. The warning lights on its wings had already stopped blinking, but the engine core still glowed orange, radiating heat as she walked by it.

Her ghost pinged his, asking for entry into the ship. She got no response for a long moment, then a hatch hissed open near her. Inside was almost completely dark except for the emergency floor lights, the ship in complete shutdown. They hadn't reported any issues, but the thing was such a junker, she wouldn't exactly be surprised.

She found him in the cargo hold, sprawled out across a bench. His helmet down on the floor beside him, one of his arms slung over his eyes. He looked like he was asleep, but his breathing told her otherwise, hitching softly in quiet every few minutes. He was still in pain. Verz was resting on his chest plate, watching its guardian protectively. If a ghost could look concerned, it was doing an excellent job. It glanced at her as she entered, blinking its eye in greeting but not wanting to move and disturb Aydin.

She tapped on the wall beside her; he startled, sitting up on his elbows and twisting to look at her. He must have been expecting someone else. He took a moment to identify her before he fell back again with a heavy sigh. Verz settled right back into place again.

"Aye lass, how's it?"

He was watching her from one eye, his arm slung across his mouth, muffling his voice. She shrugged and came to sit by his head.

"What happened?" Her ghost appeared, his voice quiet for Aydin's benefit.

The warlock still winced, his arm falling the rest of the way to cover both eyes again. "Damn Servitors… I'm not sure what they did, started humming. Couldn't move, couldn't breathe. My head feels like someone's buried a bloody axe in it."

She clucked quietly, in sympathy. The noise made Aydin look at her again. She patted his arm, motioning for him to sit up. Confused, he complied and she scooted closer, pulling his shoulders down so his head rested in her lap. He tried to sit up again, but one cool hand across his forehead made him stop. She gave him a reassuring smile, his face turned beet red.

"A warlock friend of ours used to get terrible migraines. Nicole would often help her get rid of them." She feathered her fingers through his hair, scratching gently against his scalp.

The response was instantaneous. The mistrust melted away to relief, he sighed heavily, his eyes falling shut. She smiled too, letting her fingers do the work and her mind wander. Latvie used to get crippling headaches. She explained once that sometimes warlocks can hear things no one else can, like other people's thoughts. And sometimes, all that noise got a little overwhelming. Nothing helped quite like a good scalp massage. She had the hardest time getting herself one. That was until Nicole showed up. She didn't mind one bit, found to be equally as relaxing as if she were the one getting it. It was one of the many things her and Latvie became friends over. That and coats. Nicole had a thing for nice coats and Latvie had one hell of a tailor down in the City. Not that Nicole had ever gone there personally. She had never managed to get down to the City. She never really had time, then when she lost everyone, she didn't have the will.

She shook herself from her memories, smoothing down his hair where she had ruffled it. She looked down at him for a long moment, watching him breath peacefully. He had fallen asleep on her and somehow that made her smile.

She settled in, careful not to wake him, letting her head rest on the wall behind her. It was comfortable enough, and really, she decided she wouldn't mind a nice nap.

* * *

 _Afterword: Ah hey, it only took me a month to sort this plot hole out. My solution? Fluff, cotton, and cute shit. There's your first taste of romance, for those asking. :)_

 _So one of the things Ikora says over the Tower PA is that she asks everyone to "please think quieter for the next four hours" or something else to that effect. Gave me the headcannon that warlocks can occasionally hear other people's thoughts. Or maybe some warlocks can and other can't. So on so forth and whatever._

 _Reviews..._

 _To both GamerGhost and stanwhiches, who said the exact same thing, I'm glad the shit was good. Have some more._

 _Giffy McWonderkin: Ship them forever. Forevvvvvverrrrrr. Glad you're enjoying it. :D_

 _Kyle Chaulklin, Oozak, F1REST4R, and the guest: Thank you all so much for sticking out the wait, and i'm glad you guys are all enjoying this story. :)_

 _Amberstar and Jayfeather: I hope ya'll get that worked out. Also, thank you both for the laugh. And yeah, Harpoon Guy is blazing. She's the chillest mofo that ever did try to spear things._

 _Thank you to everyone who reviewed, subbed and faved. I appreciate all of you, you guys are the greatest!_


	10. How She Vouched For Him

10\. Also known as the Time She Flirts with Him

A motion near the warlock woke her. She wasn't really asleep, so much. Zoned out, off in her own thoughts. Aydin was passed out on her lap still, so peaceful she couldn't bring herself to wake him.

Not that she had to. The motion was Verz, it's eye flickering brighter and rising off its guardian's chest. The ghost spun in the air for a moment, then looked down at its guardian. It made a soft noise that could have been a word in another language but could have been a purr too.

Aydin jolted awake, sitting up in a rush. His hair was mussed still from her massage and he looked around with such confusion Nicole couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. Aydin must've forgotten she was there; he spun in his seat, looking at her with such surprise, she felt bad for startling him.

"Foxwell? What happened? I thought you left. Did I fall asleep?"

She nodded, giving him a gentle smile, trying to ignore the odd feeling that shook her when he said her last name. It wasn't a good feeling and she wondered why.

"How long was I out?"

"Two hours," Verz answered before her ghost could. "But your head feels better."

He nodded, turning more so he wasn't so twisted to look at her, his feet back on the ground. He rubbed his forehead for a moment, Verz floating in front of him with an almost expectant air. The exchange between warlock and his ghost started suddenly, was short and clipped and mostly unintelligible, and ended very abruptly. Again, it was that part mindspeak, part english, and part bits of languages that Nicole couldn't believe were even human in origin. The most she could get out of it was they were going to have a conversation with someone. Her ghost helped with that translation, noting that every word spoke was a different language (as well as some grumbles about weird warlocks being too damn smart).

He suddenly looked at her again, and she felt the urge to jump out of her skin. She felt guilty for some awful reason for trying to listen to a conversation happening right beside her.

"We should go talk to the Vanguard. If all goes… well, if you and I are still, y'know, g-good…" his face started to turn red and immediately Nicole felt more comfortable. She would almost think he did that on purpose but she couldn't imagine anyone being able to _blush_ on command. Besides, his stutter felt far too natural and accidental to be something he was doing on purpose.

She nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Aydin. Our report will be mostly positive." Her ghost replied.

"Mostly?" Verz asked, sounding almost offended.

"Well, I'm sorry to say, but your skill as a combatant is a bit, uh…"

"Lacking?" Aydin finished for the ghost when he began to falter.

"I was hoping to be a little less blunt, but yes."

Aydin laughed. "Don't worry about it, I worked with a striker titan for almost a month. There's nothing sharp about them. I don't mind a little bluntness. I appreciate the honesty. I know I'm not good at much."

"You're a decent tactician. And I think with proper training, you will be a force to reckoned with."

Aydin laughed again, this time a not quite able to keep the almost sarcasm out. "A force to be reckoned with," he echoed, shaking his head. "And you still want to provide the proper training."

She nodded.

"You don't have to. As Tarios will no doubt testify, and well, literally everyone I've worked with, I'm not exactly a fun project."

"Oh don't get me wrong, we hated you when we first met you. You talked way too much, said a lot of stupid things, did a lot of stupid things. You were infuriating."

Aydin looked over at the ghost like he had just began doubling in size.

"What? You said you liked honesty."

"Yeah, I know. Just wasn't expecting you to be… well actually honest."

"You seem to have had a few bad experiences with people, or you have some post-mortem issues from your last life. We plan to help you work out this unnecessary paranoia."

"Unnecessary…" Both Aydin and his ghost echoed at the same time, sparing a glance for each other. Aydin looked away first, suddenly looking very ashamed. Not his usual shame either, his face wasn't red, he didn't look panicked. It was almost as if a weight had fallen on him.

Nicole frowned, but Aydin gave her no chance to react beyond that. He snapped back to normal in an instant. "Alright Professor, I dutifully await your instructions," he laughed but it felt a little forced.

He would tell her when he was ready. She had to have a little faith. So she returned his smile, and watched him relax a little. Trust would come with time. She had made it this far, gotten through a lot of his annoying exterior. It was a patience game. Nicole was a hunter, she was very good at waiting.

* * *

Aydin was nervous. At least that's what Nicole assumed was the reason behind his fidgeting. They'd only been waiting for ten minutes, but she could have sworn he had adjusted his armor about five times already. He played with his lapels, fluffed his collar, fiddled with a flap near his knee, readjusted the belt across his chest, smoothed down his collar, flicked dirt off the lapels, fiddled again with the belt.

"Would you stop? You're acting dreadful," Verz chastised him, mimicking it's guardian's accent accidentally.

"Hush, you. I'm not doing anything."

They proceeded to half another short, clipped conversation in their partial mind-speak. Nicole didn't bother trying to understand it this time. That was their deal, and she knew they didn't do it on purpose. Everyone was a little different when it came to how fast you figured out mindspeaking with your ghost. Nicole got it fairly quickly but it wasn't exactly uncommon for warlocks to take a little longer than the other classes in that aspect. They had a lot going on in their heads. Just like hunters took a long time adjusting to regular sleeping places and schedules, and titans had harder times acclimating to different environments when they'd been in one for too long.

Whatever the outcome or purpose of the argument, it looked like Verz won. Aydin appeared to pout for a few minutes, but at least he was still.

Ikora finally called them over, guiding them into a side room that Nicole realized with a start that it as her private office of sorts. It looked very warlockish. She'd been in Cayde's office. It was pretty much empty save for the trophies on the walls and the knives. Cayde had a lot of knives. She had never had a reason to be in the warlock vanguard's personal space like this and felt almost lived in. Odd touches here and there, object she had no clue origin or purpose, books that looked older than her ghost. An odd little timepiece clicked and whirred on the desk in the center, glittering in the light coming through the window. She felt watched, like there were eyes hiding in the bookshelves, or it was the books themselves watching her. She shook off the feeling of oddness that tried to cling to her. Aydin seemed hardly perturbed about being here, sparing the room hardly a glance.

"Sit," Ikora said shortly, moving around her desk and sitting down herself. She shuffled some papers around, surfacing a folder that Nicole assumed was their collective work together. "Alright Foxwell, again for the record, your assessment of the accusation put against warlock Aydin Rest."

Her ghost appeared at her shoulder in a puff of light. "Aydin appears to be innocent of the accusation put against him."

She watched him deflate from the corner of her eye. Ikora too, flicked her gaze to him briefly. She almost felt bad for how relieved he was. He really didn't trust her with this? After everything they had been through?

"Go on," Ikora prompted after a long moment of silence.

"Aydin Rest was accused of working with the Fallen enemy. We have found this to be a false accusation or a terrible misunderstanding. His place of 'hiding' that the titan and vanguard are both curious over turned out to be no more than a salvage yard. Odd for warlock to salvage, but considering the lack of training, combat mission are proving to be difficult. Especially if we to attempt to gain on his own. The Fallen in question is an individual we have dubbed Harpoon Guy."

Aydin twitched beside her, a barely imperceptable movement that Nicole hardly noticed. Neither Ikora nor her ghost seemed to notice him. She glanced over quietly, her hackles rising. She couldn't quite understand what the look on his face meant but it was not a kind expression. It was like she had just ventured into sacred land and she had better tread carefully.

The looks that he gave her when he was being kind and sweet, the gentle benevolent intelligence that always seemed to stun her and left her wanting more; and the look he was giving her now was the same intensity, the same intelligence narrows into a single focus. But it was not kind or warm. It was cutting and malevolent. It the look you gave people you hated, didn't trust, and it frightened her to be the focus of it.

Then it was gone, and Aydin was staring at his knees. His face was pale as a ghost and he was ringing his hands together nervously. "Harpoon guy is just a Fallen jerk that keeps stalking me. I…" he took a breath, shaken and frightening. "I did save his life from Tarios."

Nicole wasn't quite sure what was happening. The look he had given her left her numb and blind. She didn't know how to react. What had it meant? Was she not supposed to mention it? That Fallen bastard was who got him in trouble in the first place, why was he so frightening of Ikora's reaction to it.

The warlock vanguard waited out the pause, her gaze on Aydin like an anchor keeping him in his seat. She didn't have to prompt him, he continued on his own after the pause. "He's been following me around for three months now. Sometimes he appears real close, other times he's off on some ridge miles away. He's tried to kill me a few times but I've always managed to escape or be revived. He's old and clever, and I'm weak and young and he gives me the run around but I can't kill him. My weapons aren't powerful enough and my Light isn't bright enough. But I want…" He sighed again, chewing his lip. "I want-t-t-t…" Swallow, take a breath. "T-t-t-t…"

"He wants to beat him on his own," her ghost finally interjected after watching the warlock struggle long enough. "The thing's by itself, far as we know. No other known Fallen activity aside from Devils in the north. It wasn't affiliated, as far as we could tell. An outlier. Harmless for a few months. And a good goal for Aydin to work toward. He save its life because the titan threatened to destroy a self imposed goal."

The silence that followed almost felt suffocating. Aydin was stock still; he didn't even dare fidget. Ikora watched the other warlock like a snake, waiting to strike. Then she sat back, and a collective breath was taken in the room.

"I'm giving you four months to kill it. After that and I'll send another team to dispatch it."

"F-four months?" Aydin whispered, his face still bloodless. "Th-that's not very much t-t-time."

"Four months," she repeated. "Otherwise, congratulations, Rest. Your innocence has been vouched for and the probation has been lifted. You are free to leave the Tower whenever you desire, with or without an escort. Of course, any further interactions between you two are encouraged. Foxwell will make a good companion, Rest, try not to sabotage it this time." Her voice took on an almost gentle tone, slightly amused.

Aydin and Nicole stood, saluted, and left the office together. It wasn't until they were back in the plaza that Aydin seemed to deflate a little bit. He seemed scared suddenly, and Nicole wondered at what. If it was the Fallen he would have to kill, she couldn't imagine it being _that_ scary. Four months was a decent amount of time to kill _one_ Fallen. Unless there were many more that he knew about and he wasn't telling her.

She shook the thought. He was innocent. That had been proven. She was sure there was another reason why he had such an issue killing a single Fallen, and it would come eventually, but whatever it was, it couldn't be that bad. Verz stayed by his side, and that had to count for something. Besides, Aydin wasn't that bad of a person once you got past all the annoying bits. He had told her he meant no harm, and she had faith in him.

"We should start training soon. How about this afternoon?" Her ghost appeared at her shoulder, following his Guardian's desire to break the pensive look from the warlock. Whatever he was so worried about, she would help him work it out.

He wasn't looking at her, having walked all the way down to the rail overlooking the City and the Traveler in the distance. He shook his head almost absently. "No, I have too much to do."

Verz was at his shoulder, looking as concerned as a ghost could manage. It flicked it's gaze to Nicole then. "We must go to Mercury and deliver our report." It turned back to it's guardian, looking almost flustered, fluttering its shell in agitation. "We should go now, shouldn't we." It wasn't a question.

Aydin looked back at Nicole for a moment. "Thank you, Foxwell, but Verz is right. We have to deal with this now. We'll be back in a few days and we can get to training then." He was almost absent-minded in the way he spoke to her, as if she wasn't really there.

She tried to ignore the sudden gut-punch feeling she got when he said her name. _Foxwell…_ Her last name, impersonal, distant. Why did that bug her, of all things?

She smiled through it, nodding. She wasn't really sure he saw it, to be honest. He breezed past her, headed back to the hangar. She watched him go, unsure of her own emotions. Disappointed at what he still called her, confused by his behavior and her own discomfort, concerned about him. Concerned about herself. Maybe she was getting too attached. A few days to herself would be good. Remember the comforts of solitude.

She geared up at the vaults, mostly to kill time for Aydin to leave, then followed his path to the hangar. She set out for Venus, hoping for some peace and quiet among the Vex ruins.

* * *

Nicole spent the next day relaxing as much as an active duty guardian was capable. She slept long, not leaving the Tower until well past noon. She picked up a few bounties for some minotaurs on Mars and cleared out a good chunk of a partially collapsed subway tunnel in the process.

She returned to the Tower late and enjoyed a few drinks in the smoke dense hunter bar beneath the hangar. She always enjoyed listening to other hunters swap stories of their adventures. One of the younger hunters there that night had just returned from a six month journey out exploring a string of abandoned cities on Ganymede. No survivors of course, the ice buried them long ago, but he told of the man-made tunnels, the ones not completely flooded, covered in shimmering shining silicate crystals that glowed in the ghost-light like diamonds.

Nicole's heart soared at the idea of taking such a journey. Davion always promised her a trip somewhere far away, like to Europa or Io. It filled her with such wonder to think about going to these places, stepping foot where man had not tread in centuries. But without him, she couldn't muster the courage to go alone. That kind of solitude terrified her.

She sated herself with the stories. She had missions to complete here, and a City with thousands of living, innocent people to protect. One day the City would not need her, and she would find the courage to explore the old lands made new by ruin. Tonight, she enjoyed the story and tried not to miss her friends so much.

She was surprised to find someone waiting for her at her apartment. A titan, if his size was any indication. Tall, dark purple and black metal faceplates and deep red optics made him an imposing face to match the intimidating figure he cut in the stark white-lit hallway. The idea that he could have been waiting for someone else was impossible. He was leaning almost casually against her door, watching her as she she approached.

"You vouched for him?" He said as she got closer.

Her gate faltered but she figured quickly who he was talking about. She couldn't remember his name, but this was the titan that had accused Aydin in the first place. Even out of his armor, he was wider and taller than her by fair amounts. She would have been intimidated if she were a lesser guardian.

Her ghost appeared at her shoulder, but not without giving her an unhappy little ping. This titan was here to cause a stink and neither ghost nor guardian were looking forward to it. Nicole was warm with drink and tired after a long day. She wasn't in the mood to deal with a guardian angry over decisions already made.

"We did. He proved his innocence to us-"

"Proved," the titan snorted. "Proved? How did he _prove_ himself to you?"

"First of all the Fallen-"

"Harpoon Guy? Did he tell you about the cat and mouse game they play? Did he also tell you how they protect each other like real _buds_ ," he spat.

She frowned. "He admitted to protecting it."

"Her. Aydin's real buddy buddy with her. Knows her name I bet. Knows a lot about her that he's not saying. They're not enemies, hunter. They're friends. He _protects_ her. Wouldn't be surprised if he tried jumping in bed with her. Would explain a whole _lot_ about him."

Nicole snorted in disgust. How could this titan even make such a disgusting assumption was beyond her comprehension. "He wants to prove that he can kill it by himself. He saved its life from you because you would ruin that goal."

The titan snorted. "Amazing. He's really got you enraptured. He used the 'looks into your eyes and makes you listen' trick, hasn't he. Yeah well, it works on everyone. Until you realize how fake it is."

Something inside her turned cold.

"Have you seen him do the opposite? When he looks into your eyes and makes you afraid of him? Doesn't work on me, but I've seen him do that to other people. I've seen him act like he actually feels. I've bore witness to how cruel he is. Up close and personal. So tell me hunter, has he invited you in for tea yet?" He gave her an exo smile, but it was cold and humorless. "Bitter in morning, sweet in the afternoon, right?"

The cold was spreading, turning her stomach sour. The feeling quickly turned to anger in her gut; she scowled at him. "You sound like a jealous lover," her ghost snarked, almost without her consent, feeding off her anger.

"He makes you think you're special, that you mean something to him. It's all a ruse to get at you. Once he learns what he wants from you, once he gets his way, or realizes he never will, he will drop you like a bad habit. And he'll make sure to ruin your life in the process." The titan kept going like he hadn't heard the ghost but Nicole saw him twitch and turn away slightly. Perhaps not a direct hit, but the titan was emotionally compromised. Emotional titans were never good.

"You _are_ jealous!" Her ghost laughed at him. "You were the one who accused him, remember? You let him down."

"You don't know anything. He figured out I was watching him a long time before I saw him protect his fallen tramp. He sabotaged my crucible leaderboard scores, cleaned me out of glimmer without me realizing it, _stole_ my exotic rifle and Traveler only knows what happened to it. That's on top of the multiple times he left me dangling in the wind on missions and in crucible matches. Bastard just wouldn't show up. And it wasn't always like that. When we first started working together, shit was good. _We_ were good. We were like you two are. Hopeful, right? You just wait, hunter. Just wait. He'll betray you too, and when he does, you'll realize I was right."

"You're delusional."

The titan was already walking away, but he stopped at her insult, turning back with an odd look on his face. "You think so? Keep an eye on Harpoon Guy, will you? See how he reacts to her. See how delusional I am." It was a challenge and the titan left her with it.

The sour feeling was back. There was bad blood between the warlock and titan. Nicole was going to have to deal with that eventually. She just hoped the titan was wrong.

* * *

Aydin was back three days later. Verz had pinged her ghost with the information of their arrival late at night, so Nicole didn't get the news until she woke up the next morning. He left her a message to come see him when she woke up, so she dressed quickly and headed down to his block.

Verz let her in, surprisingly. What didn't shock her was the fact that the warlock was passed out on his desk, still dressed in mud smeared armor. He smelled faintly of incense and wood smoke and looked like he'd been out camping. Even his hair had mud clinging to it, even where he had tied it back in an attempt to keep it out of his face. It still managed to be a wild mess regardless.

She touched his shoulder, shaking him gently. He swatted at her, mumbling in Traveler knew what language. Suddenly he sat up, spinning in his seat. He blinked the sleep from his eyes rapidly. "I brought you something."

"Good morning to you, too," her ghost greeted for both of them.

He was already rummaging across his desk, scattering papers and pieces that she assumed he had salvaged at his ship. The topography of the desk had changed so much since the last she had been there. New paper and junk probably long buried the stuff she'd seen the last time she'd been in here. Warlocks were such a funny bunch. And she never knew one to have a decent sense of organization. Even Ikora's office had that sense of chaos to it.

Suddenly he started handing her things. First something small, what looked like a gear to something. Then next thing he handed her was about the same size but several times heavier. She nearly dropped it but Aydin hardly noticed.

He was talking, spouting nonsense technobabble at her about the pieces he had handed her, still scouring the desk for something else.

"I see it wasn't just a trip to Mercury." Nicole noticed the probing tone in her ghost, but if the warlock was made nervous by it, he had no tells.

"Ah yeah, little low on glimglams."

"Glimglams…"

"So we went to get some tradable pieces." He pointed to a satchel on the other side of the room, bulging with treasure and about as muddy as the warlock.

She picked absently at a piece of his hair, crushing the dirt clinging to it. "You also look like you've gone wrestling with pigs."

Aydin laughed. "Does wrestling with ancient engine pieces count?"

"Go take a shower. We can wait."

He grinned at her, stood, and saluted cheekily. "Yes Professor."

 _I hope he doesn't intend to call me that all the time._

Her ghost pinged amusement back at her, and the niggling thought that Aydin probably did.

Aydin disappeared in the dark hallway. A moment later Nicole heard the water come on. Verz was buzzing absently around the kitchen, making little noises to itself. Nicole examined the pieces he brought her for a moment. One she could identify, and it was worth a few hundred glimmer. The other she had no idea. She wondered briefly if Holliday would want them. She had no idea who else to sell it too.

The warlock returned fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and in a clean set of armor. Water still dripped off his hair but he looked significantly more awake. Verz's puttering in the kitchen suddenly bore fruit in the form of two steaming cups of tea. Aydin griped for about two seconds about how the ghost wasn't supposed to touch his teapot, but he seemed grateful. Nicole was a little more wary this time around, doctoring the tea with sugar first.

They enjoyed the tea in silence for several minutes. This was comfortable, amiable. The titan's words from the other night suddenly surfaced. _Has he invited you in for tea yet?_

What was that even supposed to mean? It obviously had some ulterior motive the titan was hinting at. What could be so harmful about sharing a cup of tea? She looked down into the umber liquid still at the bottom of her cup and sighed.

"What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, realizing she had baited him into asking without really meaning to. She was still glad he asked.

"What's the titan's name you used to work with?" Her ghost asked for her.

Aydin's face instantly soured. "Tarios. What about him?"

"He caught up to us the other night. Had some not so nice things to say. What happened-"

"I really don't want to talk about him please. I thought we were friends and he d-didn't want to be, so whatever. It's whatever." He shrugged. "That's over now. I'd like to t-try and forget about him." He said this all in an odd little rush, spitting out an explanation in attempt to deter her. She was hardly phased by it, and it only served to peak her curiosity more.

"Funny 'cause he made it seem like he wanted to be your friend and you didn't want to reciprocate."

Aydin paused for a second, an odd mix of emotions crossing his face. Verz said something in another language from the kitchen. It sounded like a warning.

"I d-don't want to t-talk about him."

"You two act like fighting lovers not willing to admit your feelings."

Aydin laughed. She was expecting him to blush, or get flustered. With the stutter and the fact that it was what usually happened when she asked him a question like that. But he just laughed. "Tarios was a good guy and all, when he wasn't trying to manipulate me. But he and I would have never worked like that. I'm not his type."

He paused, the mirth draining out of him. He chewed his lip for a moment, and Nicole waited for him to continue. "We clicked well at first, okay. We g-got along… had similar interests outside of guardianship, made a good team. Not just in the field. Brains and brawn combo, we destroyed in the crucible." He shrugged again, looking up to meet her gaze instead of staring into his cup. "He was spying on me. I tried to- tried to drop him. He hung on. The harder I tried, the tighter he clung. I got mad, got low. I ruined his dream of joining 'star dream fireteam'." He waved his free hand for emphasis. "After that he had it out for me. Then that day in Jersey happened and you know the rest."

"The heavily abbreviated version of things?"

"I still don't want to talk about him."

"I thought you hated the Crucible?"

"I do."

"Because of Tarios?"

He shook his head. "Other reasons."

"Then why play with him?"

"How many times do I have to say it, hunter? I don't want to talk about him. I'm starting to get annoyed." His demeanor changed suddenly. Harmless idiot warlock with a soft intelligent interior no more. This wasn't the sharp anger she'd seen in Ikora's office either. This was something else.

Nicole backed off, not at all liking his tone. She didn't want to admit it, not even to herself, but it was almost like he broke character in a moment of actual irritation. It gave her more to think about. And annoyingly, it made her doubt him again. She was getting really tired of doubting him. She just wanted to trust her own judgement of him and be done with it.

She put her hands up in surrender and he calmed down. He'd puffed himself up to be taller than her, and with her surrender he deflated. She was hardly frightened of him, but she didn't want to start an argument either.

"We're just curious."

"I know. I'm sorry." He fidgeted, ducking his head in apparent shame. "It's still a sore spot. C-can we just go, please."

He was putting her back in control after he'd wrenched it from her accidentally. She sighed and patted his shoulder. He looked honestly a little ashamed. He wasn't looking at her now, his shoulders bunched up, making him seem hunched.

She touched his chin with a finger, making him look at her. His eyes glanced to her's and she offered him a reassuring smile.

His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, the rest of him turned beet red. "Uh, yup. We're going!"

She hadn't realized how close they'd been standing until he was rushing away, leaving behind a cold breeze with his quick departure.

 _What?_

"What do you mean, 'what'?" her ghost commented from her shoulder. "That was very blatant flirting."

 _It was not!_

"It totally was."

"That was definitely flirting." Verz said from the other shoulder, eye rotated toward the door Aydin had left open behind him. "Flirting scares him."

Nicole glanced between both ghosts for a second. _What is this? Gang up on the hunter or something?_

Verz couldn't heard her, floating oblivious at her shoulder still. Her ghost pinged amusement back at her jab.

"The downside to all this flirting is that I think Aydin actually likes the attention." Verz carried on, unaware of the other exchange that had just happened. "Either that, or he likes _you_." And with that it floated away, following its guardian out the door.

She felt faintly insulted. _Downside?_

* * *

 _Afterword: Oh hey look I managed to get ten out before the end of the year. I'm sorry I'm a slow person._

 ** _Reviews!_**

 _FusRoDerp (fantastic name btw), stanwhiches, oozak, yvelt (i'm abbreviating sorry, but damn what a username): Thank you all for the kind words, you guys are awesome and I'm glad you're enjoying the story thus far._

 _Jayfeather and Amberstar: You guys continue to crack me up. Good luck with your future writing endeavors, and I'm glad you are enjoying mine. I'll eventually pop over and take a gander at your work (if i ever find time *sigh*), I promise._

 _Lazypersons: Ah yes tea time. And lap naps. There will be arguing. Lots and **lots**_ _of arguing. :)_

 _F1REST4R: Your FACE is amazing! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and thank you!_

 _PerfectlyUseless: I'm not much of a baker, but you can have a burnt crisp if you'd like. Glad you're enjoying it. :)_

 _Dragon: Dedicated reader! I'm so glad you enjoy it so much, I will try my best to live up!_

 _And Thank you so much to everyone who commented, fave'd and subbed. It all gives me the strength to keep going, even when I have HUGE doubts about this story. Happy Holidays and I'll see y'all next year!_


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